Preamble

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — ENEMY-OCCUPIED COUNTRIES (STOLEN WORKS OF ART)

Mr. Keeling: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any evidence that works of art stolen from enemy-occupied countries are in the personal possession of Nazi leaders?

The Minister of State (Mr. Richard Law): There have undoubtedly been cases where works of art have been removed from occupied territory and sent to Germany. I have also seen reports in the Press to the effect that certain art treasures have passed into the personal possession of Nazi leaders, but I have no official confirmation of this.

Commander Locker-Lampson: Will the return of every object of art stolen from the plundered peoples be a condition of any armistice?

Mr. Law: I should have thought that that would have been a very suitable condition. But my hon. and gallant Friend will remember that the Allied Governments made a declaration in January last that works of art, and indeed other property, sold by the Germans to neutral countries would not possess a clean title.

Mr. Hannah: Did we not manage something of the sort after the Napoleonic wars?

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH AND AMERICAN WOMEN, UNITED STATES (EXIT PERMITS)

Mr. Ivor Thomas: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that the British Embassy in Washington refuses to request the American authorities for exit permits for women, having both British and American nationality, who wish

to travel to this country accompanied by their children to rejoin their husbands; what is the reason for this discrimination against a class of British subjects; and whether he will issue instructions to end the present practice?

Mr. Law: I am glad to be able to inform my hon. Friend that His Majesty's Embassy at Washington have recently been empowered to support, at their discretion, applications made to the State Department by women of British and United States nationality with children.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH EMBASSIES AND LEGATIONS (HANSARD)

Commander King-Hall: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many British Embassies and Legations there are now; and how many of these are regularly supplied with Hansard?

Mr. Law: There are now 20 British Embassies and 29 British Legations abroad, some of which are already regularly supplied with Hansard. I am, however, considering the possibility of supplying Hansard to all our Missions abroad.

Oral Answers to Questions — ITALY (ARMISTICE TERMS)

Mr. Martin: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can now publish the full Armistice terms with Italy, or, if not, make some further statement thereon?

Mr. Law: I have nothing to add to the statement which I made in the House on 10th November.

Mr. Martin: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there has been considerable leakage in Italy and other countries about the terms of this Armistice? Will he not consider making a statement?

Mr. Law: I am aware that there has been considerable leakage and that various reports of what the Armistice terms contain have appeared in the Press, but I would advise my hon. Friend not to pay too much attention to them, since they are probably inaccurate. This instrument of the Armistice does not concern His Majesty's Government alone, and we are not able to decide alone whether publication is desirable or not.

Oral Answers to Questions — YUGOSLAVIA (HIS MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT'S POLICY)

Captain Gammons: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any information as to the relationship between the Yugoslav National Defence Council under General Tito and the Yugoslav Government in Cairo?

Mr. I. Thomas: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the steps taken by the Yugoslav partisans to establish a Provisional Government in the liberated areas of Yugoslavia involve any change in the relations of His Majesty's Government with the Yugoslav Government in Cairo?

Mr. Driberg: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will define the attitude of His Majesty's Government to the Provisional Government of Yugoslavia newly set up under Marshal Tito?

Mr. Law: I have at present no further information than what has appeared in the Press, to the effect that a Supreme Legislative Committee and an Executive National Committee of Liberation, with the status of a temporary Government, have been set up in Yugoslavia under the auspices of General Tito, the leader of the partisan forces. Nor am I as yet in a position to say what will be the relations of these two bodies with King Peter and his Government, recognised by His Majesty's Government as the legitimate Yugoslav Government, and now established in Cairo.

Captain Gammans: Are we still supporting General Mihailovitch?

Mr. Law: Our policy is to support all forces in Yugoslavia which are resisting the Germans. As things are, we are giving the partisan forces more support than those of General Mihailovitch, for the simple reason that the resistance of the partisan forces to the Germans is very much greater.

Mr. John Dugdale: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that this may present us with the first opportunity of carrying into effect the principles we have enunciated of recognising Governments in liberated territories which have been chosen by the people we have liberated?

Mr. Law: The hon. Member is mistaken in saying that it gives us the opportunity

now: it will give us the opportunity when the territory is liberated, and we shall take advantage of that opportunity. Our policy is always to allow the people we have liberated to choose their own Governments.

Mr. Vernon Bartlett: Can the right hon. Gentleman give any estimate of the respective military forces behind these two leaders?

Mr. Law: That is another question, and I cannot answer it now.

Mr. Pickthorn: Is the right hon. Gentleman sure that he is not arguing in a circle when he talks of giving more support to those who are making more resistance and vice versa? Can he tell us what are the relations between the two sets of communiqués, those of Mihailovitch and those of Tito? Also, where is the so-called Yugoslav Freedom radio station?

Mr. Law: The last part of the question I shall have to see on the Paper. The second part and the first part I must confess I did not understand.

Mr. Riley: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that very important issues are involved in these questions, and cannot we have the fullest information at the earliest possible opportunity?

Mr. Law: Yes, Sir, the House will have the fullest information at the earliest possible opportunity.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY

Blyth Shipyard Tender

Mr. R. J. Taylor: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that one of the charges against a director of Blyth Shipyard and an Admiralty official, on which there was a conviction, was that tenders had been altered to the extent of £12,000, such addition still enabling the shipyard to secure the contract; whether this £12,000 has been returned to the Government; and, if not, is it proposed to take action to reclaim this sum?

The First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. A. V. Alexander): Yes, Sir. The sum of £12,000 has been deducted from amounts due to the company concerned.

Mr. Taylor: Has the right hon. Gentleman satisfied himself that these were the only cases of this kind in the shipyard?

Mr. Alexander: They are the only cases that have come to light.

Mr. Thorne: What is being done with the Admiralty official who was mentioned?

Mr. Alexander: He has been tried and sentenced, and is serving his sentence.

Evacuation Area, South-West England (Ameliorative Measures)

Mr. Frankel: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty the arrangements which have been made to meet the hardships of the inhabitants of a certain part in the South-Western area who have been evacuated to make room for troops; and particularly what provision was made for transportation to alternative accommodation; what guarantee was given against pecuniary loss through the compulsory disposal of property, stock and other effects; and what guarantees have been given for the restoration to these people of their homes when the time arrives, together with the assistance to enable them to re-establish themselves when the restoration takes place?

Mr. Alexander: Every endeavour is being made to meet the hardships of the people evacuated from this area. Arrangements have been made to obtain living accommodation for those who are unable to obtain alternative accommodation themselves. Immediate monetary advances are being made in respect of expenses incurred in removal, and free storage accommodation is being provided for property which they cannot take with them. An endeavour is made to find work for those who have no other employment to which they can transfer. A car pool is available to transport people to alternative accommodation in the immediate vicinity or to the nearest railway station in the case of people moving to a distance, and a motor transport pool with the necessary labour has been organised for removing their belongings. Assistance is also being provided for packing and so on, for those unable to do the work themselves.
Compensation has to be paid in accordance with the provisions of the Compensation (Defence) Act, 1939, and consequently it has not been possible to give any guarantee against pecuniary loss; all claims, however, are being dealt with as

generously as possible under the Act. It is anticipated that the provision of storage accommodation for furniture and other effects and the arrangements which have been made for maintaining livestock on other farms outside the area will mean that very few people will have to dispose of their property, stock and other effects. People affected have been told that the area will be released from requisition as soon as Service requirements permit and that just as every assistance is being given to them in evacuating the area, so will all possible aid be given in re-establishing them later.

Mr. Frankel: Is any special organisation being set up to deal with representations in respect of particular cases of hardship?

Mr. Alexander: All that has been communicated to the people on the spot.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: What arrangements, if any, have been made to preserve monuments and buildings of architectural or other value and properties of peculiar agricultural or horticultural value?

Mr. Alexander: The Chiefs of Staff concerned are constantly in touch with each other, and are doing their best to secure the objectives my hon. Friend has in mind.

Mr. Nicholson: Is my right hon. Friend sure that the Chiefs of Staff concerned have an appreciation of these aspects of the matter?

Mr. Alexander: I find that the Chiefs of Staff, who are representatives of the American nation, are as keen upon those things as we are ourselves.

Oral Answers to Questions — COLONIAL GOVERNORS (MEETINGS WITH MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT)

Mr. Keeling: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will arrange for Governors who are in London on leave or duty to meet hon. Members?

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Colonel Oliver Stanley): The hon. Member will appreciate that, owing to the varying duration of visits and to the pressure of official business, it would not be possible in some cases to make any definite or formal arrangement. I welcome, however, as many opportunities as


possible for informal contact between Governors and hon. Members, and on this basis and subject to the limitations I have mentioned, I will gladly bear in mind the suggestion the hon. Member has made.

Mr. Keeling: Would not my right hon. and gallant Friend be a little more definite, and say that, subject to the limitations he has mentioned, he will arrange for such meetings?

Colonel Stanley: If my hon. Friend will say exactly what arrangements, I will be a little more definite.

Mr. Keeling: That Governors should be invited to meet hon. Members informally.

Colonel Stanley: Hon. Members must themselves take a little initiative in the matter.

Mr. Turton: Could not arrangements be made through the all-party Panel to meet Governors on leave?

Colonel Stanley: I do not think that the all-party Panel or a very big meeting is necessary. In many cases hon. Members would get much more advantage from a meeting of a less formal kind.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRINIDAD

Dr. Benham's Committee (Report)

Squadron-Leader Donner: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, since Dr. Benham's fact-finding committee reported to the Government some weeks ago, it is intended to publish this Report; and, if so, when?

Colonel Stanley: Dr. Benham's Committee reported to the Trinidad Government on 9th November. The Report is being printed, and as soon as it has been considered by the Trinidad Executive Council, it will be published together with the Trinidad Government's proposals for action on the report.

Labour Supply

Squadron-Leader Donner: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of the present war situation and the importance attached to the rehabilitation of the sugar industry by the Colonial Office and the Ministry of Food, he will request the appropriate American authorities to release labour by diminishing

the tempo of their construction works in Trinidad during the harvest period from January to June?

Colonel Stanley: Labour is being gradually released by the United States authorities from work on the United States Base in Trinidad as that work approaches its completion, but I regret that I do not feel able to accept my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestion that the American authorities should be requested to slow down defence work which they still consider it necessary to carry out in Trinidad, in order to release more labour for agricultural work.

Squadron-Leader Donner: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the nature of the restrictions imposed by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and/or the Governments in the West Indies on the movement of labour to Trinidad from other British Colonies where there is a surplus; whether he is aware that the labour available for agriculture in Trinidad is no more than approximately 30 per cent. of normal; and whether, in view of the improvement in the shipping position, he proposes to take any measures to alleviate the labour situation in the island?

Colonel Stanley: Such restrictions as there are on the immigration into Trinidad of labour from other Colonies are imposed by the Immigration Ordinance of 1942 in the interests of labour. In fact it has not proved necessary under the Ordinance to turn back any immigrant labourer who wished to get into Trinidad, except in a few cases on security grounds. In effect therefore the only restrictions are those of transport. Statistics of labour do not show the exact percentage of normal labour now available for agriculture, but I do not feel able to accept my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestion that it is so low as 30 per cent. In reply to the last part of the Question, the Governor is exploring the possibilities of recruiting labour from the neighbouring British Colonies where there is a surplus available.

Squadron-Leader Donner: Is it contended by the Government that no shipping is available to transport labour from Jamaica to Trinidad when shipping has been available to transport thousands of workers from Jamaica to Florida to help with the American harvest?

Colonel Stanley: My hon. and gallant Friend will realise that they are going in exactly the opposite direction, and it may be easier to get shipping from the United States to Jamaica and back again than from Jamaica to the United States.

Dr. Morgan: Could not the Government or Colonial Office devise an emigration scheme under an organised body to see that the labourers going to Trinidad get good housing and amenities?

Colonel Stanley: Certainly, if we were able to overcome the shipping difficulties and organise emigration, we should have to look after the conditions when they got there.

Oral Answers to Questions — KENYA (AFRICAN REPRESENTATION)

Mr. Riley: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can make a statement regarding the functions of the Standing Advisory Committee for Local Native Councils recently set up in Kenya; and whether, in connection with this advisory committee, a provision can be made to secure direct representation by Africans upon the Legislative Council?

Colonel Stanley: The functions of this Committee are to advise the Governor-in-Council on the draft annual Estimates of the Local Native Councils, and on such other matters as the Governor may refer to it. With regard to the second part of the Question, as I informed the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Creech Jones) on 21st April, I think that we should see how this Advisory Committee works before taking up the question of direct representation in the Legislative Council.

Mr. Riley: Does not the right hon. and gallant Gentleman think that this is a suitable opportunity to arrange for some direct representation by Africans upon the Legislative Council, or is it the policy of the Government not to allow Africans to become members of the Legislative Councils in their own territory?

Colonel Stanley: No, Sir, it is obviously clear that it is not in the interest of the Africans to throw away the safeguards of present representation until one is certain that African representatives will be able to play their proper and fair share in the Legislative Assembly. Here is a way of trying them out, and if this experiment

is successful, we will proceed to further progress.

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why no African has been appointed to sit on the Government Committee to consider further settlement in Kenya; whether any settlement policy has been approved both by the settlement section of the Agricultural Production and Settlement Board and by Parliament; and whether he is aware that the Rev. Beecher, appointed to represent East Africans on the Kenya Council, himself considers the whole system of Native representation unsatisfactory?

Colonel Stanley: The Government Committee is the Settlement Section of the Agricultural Production and Settlement Board. As I explained to my hon. Friend on 3rd November, this is primarily an executive body concerned only with settlement in the European areas and African representation would not be appropriate. The Board will implement the policy of closer European settlement in the Highlands which was approved by the then Secretary of State before the war. No new policy has been formulated. With regard to the last part of the Question, I am aware of Mr. Beecher's views on the question of African representation on the Legislative Council.

Mr. Sorensen: Will not the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, in view of his knowledge of the Rev. Beecher's views, reconsider this question, as surely a man on the spot who takes such an interest in Africans has a point of view well worth consideration?

Colonel Stanley: A memorandum on the subject was submitted to me when in East Africa, and I have asked the Governor for his observations upon it.

Mr. Sorensen: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman announce the result of his reflections on the matter?

Colonel Stanley: I am always anxious, in answer to any question, to give the result or lack of result of any of my reflections.

Oral Answers to Questions — NIGERIA (KADUNA COLLEGE)

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether sympathetic consideration has been given to


protests against the refusal of admission to Kaduna College of Southern boys domiciled in the Northern Province of Nigeria; and whether, if admission cannot be granted, any steps are being taken to provide suitable educational facilities?

Colonel Stanley: I have no information regarding any protests of the nature described by the hon. Member, but the Acting Governor is being asked for a Report on the matter.

Oral Answers to Questions — FORTH (ROAD BRIDGE, QUEENSFERRY)

Mr. Mathers: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport whether the construction of a road bridge across the Forth, near Queensferry, has now been decided upon as a post-war development; and whether arrangements are proceeding with the interested local authorities so that the necessary legislation may be prepared?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport (Mr. Noel-Baker): As I informed my hon. Friend in answer to a Question on 22nd September, my Noble Friend has come to no decision about the construction of a road bridge across the Forth.

Mr. Mathers: Is the Minister aware that the answers on this matter are looked upon in Scotland as simply not being good enough, and is he also aware that this fully matured project was before the war looked upon as being approved for bringing into operation whenever the circumstances would permit, and why is this negative attitude taken now?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I said that my Noble Friend has come to no decision either favourably or unfavourably, but I would point out to my hon. Friend that this is a question of priority. We shall require, after the war, a great number of development works for the improvement of the transport system, and my Noble Friend must choose to do first those which are most urgent and which will give the biggest economic return.

Mr. Mathers: Do we understand that certain priority projects have been decided upon and that this is not one of them?

Mr. Noel-Baker: No, Sir, I did not say that.

Mr. Shinwell: Has the Noble Friend referred to come to any decision on any post-war matter at all, and, if not, why not?

Mr. Noel-Baker: He has.

Mr. Gallacher: May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether his reply is not a further argument for the right of Scotland to manage its own domestic affairs, and should not his Noble Friend transfer the power of decision to the Scottish Office?

Mr. Woodburn: Will my hon. Friend's Noble Friend keep in mind the social necessities as well as economic considerations in regard to projects of this kind?

Mr. Noel-Baker: Yes, Sir, he certainly will.

Oral Answers to Questions — MERCHANT NAVY (REPATRIATED PRISONERS OF WAR)

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Ian Fraser: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport whether he will make a statement about the leave allowed on repatriation to members of the Merchant Navy who have been prisoners of war?

Mr. Noel-Baker: As I told my hon. and gallant Friend in answer to a Question on 10th November last, merchant seamen who returned from enemy camps were at that time given one month's leave with basic pay and subsistence allowance. Since I gave him that answer the arrangements have been revised and improved. In future the leave granted will be one month for any seaman who has been in captivity for fifteen months or less and a further week will be allowed for each additional period of three months up to a maximum of two months. This will include any leave due to the prisoner when he was made prisoner.

Sir I. Fraser: Will my hon. Friend—because he has shown a good spirit in this matter—continue wherever possible to assimilate the conditions of merchant seamen to those of the Navy?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I am much obliged for what my hon. and gallant Friend has been good enough to say, and I will certainly consider this point, and I ought perhaps to add that this new arrangement will apply to all seamen whether fit to return to sea or not.

Mr. R. J. Taylor: Will this new arrangement be made retrospective in respect of those seamen who had been repatriated and had returned back for duty before this arrangement came into operation?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I will consider my hon. Friend's suggestion, but retrospective arrangements are sometimes very difficult to carry out.

Oral Answers to Questions — OXFORD LAUNDRY (PETITION)

Mr. Quintin Hogg: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport what steps he proposes to take on a petition signed by 327 Oxford residents containing allegations against a laundry imposed on them by force under the zoning scheme the name of which has been communicated to him?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I have consulted my hon. and gallant Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, who is, I understand, arranging to meet my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) to discuss this petition and the problems involved.

Mr. Hogg: Does the hon. Gentleman accept this principle that, having forced a particular retailer on a particular client, he becomes responsible if the retailer is incompetent or dishonest?

Mr. Noel-Baker: Perhaps it would be better not to accept any principle before the conference that is to be held with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade.

Mr. Hogg: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food has accepted my principle?

Oral Answers to Questions — RAILWAYS

Great Western Company (Permanent Way Staff)

Mr. Pearson: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport whether he will take steps to allay the discontent which is caused among the poorest paid railway staffs by the refusal of the Great Western Railway Company to allow men occupying the lowest rated positions in the permanent way department to transfer to the traffic and/or goods department, where there are vacancies carrying considerably higher rates of

wages, and the placing into these positions of men who have never before been in the railway service; and will he arrange that men with long service in the permanent way department shall be transferred to shunting and other better paid duties requiring knowledge and railway skill in priority to newcomers?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I fully sympathise with the purpose of my hon. Friend's Question, but I regret that the Great Western Railway are seriously short of permanent way labour. They have 300 more miles of track to maintain than before the war, and their staff has been substantially reduced. They can only make transfers to other departments, if they are able to obtain other suitable personnel to fill the vacancies so caused. Subject to this, however, the Great Western Railway Company will consider whether and how an opportunity can be given to some of the permanent way staff to transfer to other work.

Mr. Watkins: Have the subjects dealt with in the Question been dealt with by trade union negotiations? If not, would not that be the right way to deal with the matter?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I am much in agreement with my hon. Friend.

Mr. Pearson: Has not the matter been before the Area Committee and nothing done by the Company?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I will inquire.

Locomotives (Maintenance)

Mr. Jewson: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport whether he will take steps to secure the better maintenance of railway engines with a view to preventing the loss of time now arising from the constant failure of trains to run to schedule?

Mr. Noel-Baker: My hon. Friend will, I am sure, recognise that, since the war began, the railways have only been enabled to build a strictly limited number of new locomotives for replacement purposes; that they have only limited staffs available for repairs; and that they are carrying a greatly increased traffic. In spite of these difficulties, they have done everything in their power to maintain their locomotives in an efficient condition.

Mr. E. Walkden: Is my hon. Friend aware that most of the railway termini and marshalling yards are cluttered up with goods and wagons, due to the allegations and suggestions contained in the Question, and that engineers are anxious to do more to railway engines but the Minister of War Transport will not respond?

Mr. Noel-Baker: It has nothing to do with policy. It is a question of labour. If we can get more labour for the repair of locomotives, they will be repaired more quickly.

Mr. Walkden: Are you not using labour for the wrong purpose?

Christmas Travel (Publicity)

Major Lyons: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport the approximate amount that the main line railway companies propose to spend in public advertisement against unnecessary Christmas travel?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I will endeavour to obtain the information required by my hon. and gallant Friend, and I will communicate with him when I have received it.

Major Lyons: Whatever that amount is, can the hon. Gentleman assure the House that it will not be made futile by the running of additional trains at Christmas?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I have already given the hon. and gallant Gentleman a long answer to that question.

Control Agreement

Sir John Mellor: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport whether the financial provisions of the Railway Control Agreement were intended by the Government to represent a fair settlement on commercial principles, or whether political considerations were involved; and whether he will place in the Library a copy of the correspondence leading up to the acceptance of the financial provisions by the railway companies?

Mr. Noel-Baker: In the opinion of His Majesty's Government the provisions of the Railway Control Agreement constitute a fair consideration for the control and use of the railway company undertakings during the national emergency. The

negotiations which led up to the agreement were confidential, and I regret that it would be contrary to the public interest to publish either the correspondence or the records of the discussions which took place.

Sir J. Mellor: Are not the junior stockholders victims of a harsh and unconscionable transaction, and were not the directors, in accepting the agreement, actuated by a mistaken sense of public duty?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I could not accept the first proposition. As to the second, I hope and believe that they were actuated by a sense of public duty, and I think they were quite right.

Mr. G. Griffiths: Did not the directors think they had a good job on? If you gave the coalowners the same, they would snatch at it straight away.

Oral Answers to Questions — ONE-WAY TRAFFIC, LONDON

Mr. Purbrick: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport whether he will abolish the one-way traffic regulations in London with a view to reducing distances of travel and stoppages and thus curtail petrol consumption?

Mr. Noel-Baker: Every one-way traffic scheme in London has been reviewed, and two-day working has been restored wherever it was considered that the balance of advantage was in favour of so doing. My hon. Friend will recognise that, in some places, two-way working might cause traffic congestion, might increase the risk of accidents, and might require more police control. If, however, my hon. Friend has any special cases in mind, I shall be glad to make inquiries.

Oral Answers to Questions — MERSEY-HUMBER SHIP CANAL

Mr. Ellis Smith: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport whether it is intended to consider the linking up of the Manchester Ship Canal with the Humber; and will he invite interested people to submit evidence as to the need for the proposal and its practicability?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I am always ready to receive proposals for the practical improvement of the transport system of the


country. The project for a ship canal to link the Mersey and the Humber, however, involves such difficulties that I am afraid it would serve no useful purpose for me to issue invitations of the kind which my hon. Friend suggests.

Colonel Sir A. Lambert Ward: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that it would require 160 locks, with an average lift of 10 feet each, to get ships over the high ground between these places?

Oral Answers to Questions — PORTS (REORGANISATION)

Mr. Ellis Smith: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport whether it is intended to organise the ports on a more efficient basis for post-war purposes to land the loads at the ports nearest to the places where they are required, cutting out overlapping as far as possible; and if it is intended to benefit from our war experience in transport in every possible manner in framing post-war plans?

Mr. Noel-Baker: In considering the organisation of the ports after the war, the principle which my hon. Friend puts forward in the first part of his Question will certainly be borne in mind. During the war, many expedients have of necessity been adopted in the organisation of transport which would not be economical or convenient in time of peace; but much of our experience has been of lasting value, and my hon. Friend may rest assured that it will not be forgotten in the preparation of our post-war plans.

Mr. A. Edwards: Is my hon. Friend aware that the Port of London still has vast plans for extension, and is it not a fact that they have concentrated on London, which has suffered under a serious handicap during the war, whereas other ports, much bigger and very much cheaper, have been neglected?

Mr. Noel-Baker: Those considerations will be borne in mind by my Noble Friend.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT SYSTEM

Mr. Ellis Smith: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport whether he is aware of the need

to reduce transport charges to the minimum after the war, to put it on an efficient national basis, speed up deliveries and cut out all unnecessary overhead charges; and what action has been taken to these ends?

Mr. Noel-Baker: My Noble Friend has under active examination the complex problems of post-war transport. As he has said in another place, his objective is a transport system so co-ordinated and run that it can provide and does provide the best possible service for the least real cost to the community as a whole.

Mr. Smith: When the Minister is examining these questions will he take into consideration that the people of this country, after 20 years of the service, are determined not to be held back by the kind of people who put the supplementary to the last Question?

Mr. Mathers: Is this co-ordination to be under national ownership?

Mr. Noel-Baker: That is another question.

Mr. Neil Maclean: Is my hon. Friend considering the transport system of the Western Isles?

Mr. Noel-Baker: Everything is being considered.

Sir Herbert Williams: Can the hon. Gentleman give us an assurance that no avenue will be left unstoned?

Oral Answers to Questions — "THE PARLIAMENTARY GAZETTE"

Mr. McEntee: asked the Minister of Information whether he is aware that a publication which was issued for many years called "The Parliamentary Gazette," is not now published; and as it contained information in regard to Questions, columns spoken, Divisions figures, &c., which was useful to Members and others, will he take steps to make available to Members either by having a similar publication issued or by other means the information which was contained in the publication named?

The Minister of Information (Mr. Brendan Bracken): "The Parliamentary Gazette" was a product of private enterprise. A large part of the information


given in it is still accessible in other books of reference. Information concerning the length of speeches made by hon. Members or their persistence in asking Questions would no doubt be interesting, but I could not justify the expenditure of taxpayers money for such a purpose.

Oral Answers to Questions — POST OFFICE (MEDICAL ARRANGEMENTS)

Dr. Morgan: asked the Postmaster-General whether Dr. Basil Steele of Regent's Park receives any remuneration from his Department as surgeon, London Post Office Corps, St. John Ambulance Brigade; was this appointment made or approved by his Department; whether he is aware that as this doctor is in medical partnership with his brother, Dr. Russell Steele, a local post office doctor, he frequently has to attend Post Office employees under the Post Office medical arrangements; and, in view of his publicly expressed anti-semitic views, whether he will reconsider the desirability of making alternative medical arrangements for Jewish postal employees in this district?

The Postmaster-General (Captain Crookshank): The answers to the first two and the last parts of the Question are in the negative. Dr. Basil Steele deals with Post Office cases only when Dr. Russell Steele is unavoidably absent.

Dr. Morgan: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman answer the last part of the Question?

Captain Crookshank: I did. I said it was in the negative.

Dr. Morgan: Is it proposed to make a new arrangement to allow Jewish employees to have alternative arrangements?

Captain Crookshank: There is no necessity for that.

Oral Answers to Questions — WIRELESS RECEIVING SETS (MOTOR-CARS)

Wing-Commander Hulbert: asked the Postmaster-General whether he can now make a statement in regard to the installation of radio receivers in motor-cars?

Captain Crookshank: I regret that I am not yet in a position to convey a decision to my hon. Friend.

Oral Answers to Questions — COMMERCIAL PREMISES, GLASGOW (FIRE DAMAGE REPAIR)

Mr. McKinlay: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works why material and labour were made available for the repair of fire damage at the Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, premises of Messrs. Woolworth?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works (Mr. Hicks): Part of the ground floor had been requisitioned and restored to provide accommodation for the Ministry of Food. When the promises were vacated by the Ministry of Food that part of the ground floor which had been restored became available for use by the company. The first floor of the building remained in use as a café. The local authority required the company to carry out safety works for the protection of the public, including the provision of emergency exits, and a licence was issued for work estimated to cost £450, being the minimum amount necessary to cover essential work only.

Mr. McKinlay: Are we to take it that the answer is that the premises were restored at the instigation of the Ministry of Food for their use? If that is the answer, it is not true.

Mr. Hicks: What I told my hon. Friend was that the premises had been requisitioned by my Department for the Ministry of Food for the issue of rationing cards, and for several months they were in possession. Then the premises became available to the company.

Mr. McKinlay: Is my hon. Friend aware that I was mainly responsible for the requisitioning of the place for the issue of cards, and it is not true to say that the premises were restored for that purpose. They were used in the condition they were in.

Mr. Hicks: I have given the hon. Member the information in my possession.

Oral Answers to Questions — CHURCH OF ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST, YORK

Mr. Edmund Harvey: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works whether he will schedule, as an ancient monument, the fabric of the Church of Saint John the Evangelist,


Micklegate, York, which is in danger of being demolished to provide the site for a rest garden.

Mr. Hicks: My Ministry is not aware of any immediate intention of demolishing this building to provide a site for a rest garden, but inquiries are being made and I will inform the hon. Member of the result.

Mr. Harvey: Is not my hon. Friend aware that a deputation waited on York City Council recently on behalf of the Yorkshire Archæological Society and Yorkshire Philosophical Society, including the Dean of York, and that the City Council is adhering to its intention to demolish the church and make a rest garden? Will my hon. Friend take immediate steps to see that that is prevented?

Mr. Hicks: The church has ceased to be used for ecclesiastical purposes for a long time, and it was stripped of its fittings and sold to York Corporation. We are informed that discussions have taken place with the corporation, and as far as I know it is not intended immediately to demolish the church. We are making the necessary inquiries.

Mr. Hannah: Has not the war already destroyed more than enough of our ancient buildings?

Mr. Harvey: Is not the right time for action by the Ministry now, before steps have been begun to demolish the church?

Oral Answers to Questions — PAINT INDUSTRY EARNINGS (INQUIRY)

Sir J. Mellor: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works why he is proposing to inquire into the earnings of the paint industry; when the inquiry will begin; and how will it be conducted?

Mr. Hicks: It is a well recognised practice that the appropriate Government Department should satisfy itself that the prices of important commodities are reasonable. My Noble Friend proposes to inquire into the earnings of the paint industry in order to implement his responsibility in regard to the prices of building materials. Discussions have already begun with the industry. The inquiry

will be conducted, as is usual in these matters, by an examination of the accounts of certain representative firms.

Sir H. Williams: Will the inquiry distinguish between those firms which have been made richer by Government action and those which have been made poorer under the concentration scheme?

Oral Answers to Questions — BUILDING INDUSTRY

Mr. Linstead: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works what further scheme of concentration for the building industry is in contemplation beyond the voluntary grouping scheme for the repair of bomb-damaged houses?

Mr. Hicks: No scheme for the concentration of the building industry is either in operation or under consideration.

Mr. Linstead: Is my hon. Friend aware that his answer will go a long way to relieve considerable anxiety on this score among small builders all over the country?

Sir Percy Hurd: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works whether he can state the general result of the mission to the United States of the hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. Bossom) and other constructional experts; and what use will be made of their conclusions in view of our post-war building programmes?

Mr. Hicks: The four members of the mission are now busy writing their report and it is my Noble Friend's intention that it shall be published as soon as possible. It will cover a variety of matters, including organisation, technique, methods and new materials, which will be helpful in the preparation of standards and design for post-war building.

Mr. A. Edwards: Is it proposed to allow time for the discussion of this Report, or will it be like the Report of the Expenditure Committee, who have issued more than 100 Reports while we have had only one day during the war for their discussion?

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING CONSTRUCTION

Mr. Butcher: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works how many houses he proposes to build during the first six months of 1944?

Mr. Hicks: I assume the hon. Member has in mind the experimental houses referred to by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Production on Tuesday, 30th November which it is proposed to build to demonstrate the possibilities of various methods of construction A first instalment of 12 houses, in six pairs, is contemplated. In addition, eight other houses are being built for the Building Research Station to enable full-scale scientific research to be made into problems of building construction generally.

Mr. Butcher: Are we to take it that the sole contribution of the Ministry of Works to housing within six months is 20 houses?

Mr. Hicks: My hon. Friend ought to address that Question to the Ministry of Health or the Scottish Department. It is not the policy of my Department to initiate housing schemes. We have nothing to do with that. We only build.

Mr. Stephen: Will any of these 20 houses be built in Scotland?

Mr. Hicks: No, Sir.

Mr. Stephen: Why are none to be built in Scotland?

Mr. Hicks: If the hon. Gentleman will inquire of the Secretary of State for Scotland, he will get his answer.

Mr. Stephen: Did not the hon. Gentleman tell us that this was quite apart from the Minister of Health and the Secretary of State, and that the idea was for his Department to show the types of buildings?

Mr. Hicks: Yes, Sir.

Major Leighton: Where are these houses to be built?

Mr. Hicks: I prefer to wait for a week or so before giving that information.

Mr. Lipson: Are these houses to be built purely for demonstration purposes or will they be available for occupation afterwards?

Mr. Hicks: They are primarily for demonstration purposes, and they will be available for occupation later.

Oral Answers to Questions — OLD AGE PENSIONS (PUBLIC PETITION)

Mr. Tinker: asked the Prime Minister if he is aware that a Petition signed by over 4,090,000 electors for increases in

the weekly amount to old age pensioners was presented to the House on 2nd November, 1943, by the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton); that this Petition has not been submitted to the Committee on Public Petitions for them to consider whether such Petition should have a hearing from the Bar of the Chamber; and will he consider making arrangements to have the Standing Orders on Public Petitions examined with a view to renewing the custom of allowing such petitioners to plead their case before the House?

The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): The Petition to which my hon. Friend refers was found, when examined, not to comply with the Rules of the House. In accordance with the usual practice it was, therefore, not submitted to the Committee on Public Petitions, whose function, I would remind my hon. Friend, is to classify and prepare abstracts of Petitions in whatever manner the Committee considers best suited to convey to the House all requisite information respecting their contents. With regard to the last part of the Question, I would refer my hon. Friend to what I said on 3rd November last arising out of the statement on Business.

Mr. Tinker: If there were two mistakes in the Petition, would it not be as well if it were sent to the Committee so that they would be able to advise further petitioners on the course they should take? Nobody knows what to do, and it appears that we are keeping members of the public from their rights of appealing to the House.

Mr. Attlee: I am not in a position to alter the Rules of the House. They are laid down, and petitioners have to comply with them.

Mr. Shinwell: If the Petition is not in Order to go before the Committee on Public Petitions, have the Government taken any notice of the fact that 4,000,000 persons desire a change in the old age pension position?

Mr. Attlee: That is another question altogether.

Mr. Shinwell: What is the reply to it?

Mr. Attlee: I have already replied.

Mr. Silverman: Could my right hon. Friend say in what respect the Petition failed to comply with the Rules of the


House and whether any intimation of the defects has been conveyed to the petitioners?

Mr. Attlee: First, it was not addressed to the House; and second, it prayed for public money which was not recommended by the Crown.

Mr. Tinker: I beg to give notice that I will raise this matter on the first opportunity, as it wants clearing up.

Oral Answers to Questions — SERVICE PAY AND ALLOWANCES

Major Lyons: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the conditions now obtaining and having regard to the rates of pay of soldiers of the Dominions and United States Forces, he will now re-examine the position and consider an increase of pay for the lower ranks of the British Navy, Army and Air Force?

Mr. Attlee: As already explained, it is not possible to make any useful comparison between the rates of pay of members of the Forces of the United Kingdom and those of the Forces of the Dominions and the United States of America, where the general economic conditions, including wages and prices, differ considerably from those obtaining in this country. With regard to the present position of members of the United Kingdom Forces, I find no ground for departing from the view expressed in the answer to my hon. and gallant Friend on 6th May last.

Major Lyons: Would my right hon. Friend reconsider the question in this light, that the conditions, economical and otherwise, mean that costs and prices in this country are the same for all ranks in all Forces, and as large numbers of American and Dominion Forces receive pay which puts the British soldier at a great disadvantage, will he take steps to put an end to this manifest injustice to the British Forces?

Commander Sir Archibald Southby: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the great disparity which continues to exist betwen the remuneration paid to men in the Services and the rewards paid to civilians in industry outside?

Mr. Shinwell: Will my right hon. Friend appreciate that while it is impossible for the Government to make the comparison, the men in the Forces are

making it? It is not a matter of spending their pay in other countries. The American and Dominion soldiers and our men are spending the money in this country, and that is where the comparison should be made.

Mr. Attlee: I am well aware of it, and everybody is aware of it. I do not know whether my hon. and gallant Friend is suggesting that it is possible to equate the money rates of remuneration to troops who are serving in the same theatre of war with those of countries where conditions are very different. I suggest that he should examine it.

Oral Answers to Questions — FOOD SUPPLIES

Christmas Turkeys

Mr. Lees-Jones: asked the Minister of Food his reasons for limiting the sale of turkeys from Eire to those dealers in this country who sold 25 turkeys in the 1938 and 1939 seasons in Birmingham, Glasgow and London and to those who sold 50 such turkeys in the same seasons in Manchester; and the reason for the differentiation in quantities in these named areas?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Mr. Mabane): The decisions to which my hon. Friend refers were based on recommendations of local Organising Committees and reflect local conditions. Notwithstanding the higher minimum qualification in Manchester the ratio of retailers qualifying to population is considerably higher than in the other three cities mentioned in the Question.

Mr. Rhys Davies: When the hon. Gentleman says that certain food authorities have sent recommendations to him, has he received any from those districts where there are no turkeys?

Mr. Mabane: That is another question.

Mr. Ralph Etherton: Does the answer mean that the proportion allowed to Manchester will be less than for the three cities named?

Mr. Mabane: No, Sir.

Mr. Riley: asked the Minister of Food which districts in the West Riding will receive an allocation under his scheme for the distribution of turkeys and poultry during December?

Mr. Mabane: All retailers, throughout the West Riding, who before the war purchased imported supplies from wholesalers who are now members of the Association of Wholesale Distributors of Imported Poultry and Rabbits Limited, should receive an appropriate share of Eire and other imported supplies. There are, of course, no restrictions on purchases from producers in Great Britain.

Mr. Rhys Davies: In view of the fact that the hon. Gentleman's Department has received representations from outside those very large cities to which turkeys are going at Christmas, has he reconsidered the position at all?

Mr. Mabane: I think my hon. Friend should keep this matter in perspective. The smallest proportion of the supplies, those from Northern Ireland, is going to certain areas, and the rest of the country can purchase freely within the terms laid down Eire and other imported supplies and home-produced supplies.

Mr. Magnay: Is there not far too much time spent upon these turkeys? Is it not far more important to consider whether Turkey is coming into the war or not?

Mr. Foster: asked the Minister of Food whether he has any statement to make respecting the supply of poultry from Northern Ireland to those areas not included in the five areas mentioned in the recent Press notice; and what arrangements he has made for a fair and proper distribution there?

Mr. Mabane: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave on 1st December to the hon. Members for Dudley (Mr. C. Lloyd) and Stretford (Mr. Etherton). It is proposed to examine early in the New Year the practicability of securing a still wider distribution.

Mr. Foster: Does not the hon. Gentleman think it would be better to make a full statement on this subject in the House in order to give satisfaction to those people who are raising it, instead of dealing with it by way of question and answer?

Mr. Mabane: I thought I had made statements so often that the House was almost nauseated with them.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden: asked the Minister of Food what quota basis or title

the retailers of turkeys who largely sell to working-class consumers will receive in London or Yorkshire where such retailers dealt mostly in birds imported from foreign sources; and whether, to ensure equity, he will consider allowing their gross proven 1938 purchases from wholesalers to rank for assessment in the present distribution scheme?

Mr. Mabane: Retailers of imported turkeys in Great Britain who obtained their supplies in 1938 from an importer-wholesaler who is now a member of the distributing company will this year receive a share of the available imported supplies based on the total value of their purchases of imported poultry from that importer-wholesaler in the datum year. Moreover those retailers whose premises are situated in the five areas to which Northern Ireland turkeys are being directed are, if their sales of home-produced and Northern Ireland turkeys in 1938 or 1939 exceeded the appropriate minimum, entitled also to a share of the Northern Ireland supplies.

Mr. Walkden: Could the Ministry not have arranged to sink all these turkeys in the Irish Channel, and not bring them over at all?

Mr. G. Griffiths: And the whisky with it?

Rat Destruction Campaign (Publicity)

Mr. Keeling: asked the Minister of Food to what extent the posters, advertisements and films advising anybody knowing of rats to inform the local authorities emanate from his Department; whether he is aware that, in Middlesex, the county and borough authorities disclaim responsibility; and whether he has any statement to make?

Mr. Mabane: The Ministry of Food is responsible for the publicity referred to by my hon. Friend. In Middlesex the county council has, since 1919, been the authority responsible for administering the Rats and Mice (Destruction) Act, 1919, but it is at present delegating its powers to borough and district councils within its boundaries who are prepared to accept the delegation. I have no reason to believe that this arrangement is not now working satisfactorily.

Mr. Keeling: Is my hon. Friend aware that these advertisements and films appeared in Middlesex months before the local authorities were willing or ready to deal with any reports, and does he blame his Department or the local authorities?

Mr. Mabane: I do not think it was a case of months. I think the case to which my hon. Friend refers occurred about the moment when the delegation of responsibility from the Middlesex County Council to the borough councils was taking place. I think it is all right now.

Milk (Sell-Wholesaling Allowances)

Major York: asked the Minister of Food whether he is aware that the co-operative societies have shown their disapproval of the self-wholesaling allowance; that one of the trade advisers in milk to his Department has stated that this allowance discriminates in favour of large firms against small milk distributors and that unfavourable comment has come from all sections of the trade; and, in view of the waste of public money on firms who do not require it, will he undertake to review the milk price structure in order to eliminate this subsidy?

Mr. Mabane: I am not aware of the circumstances to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers. All distributive margins, including the self-wholesaling allowances, are fixed to meet costs actually incurred and I could not accept the suggestions in the last part of my hon. and gallant Friend's Question.

Major York: In view of the fact that the Co-operative Society has shown that these self-wholesaling allowances are unnecessary, is it not a waste of public money that the allowances should be paid to the co-operative societies?

Mr. Barnes: Is it not a fact that this margin is given to cover certain expenses, and that the co-operative societies do not favour the cancellation of that margin; and is it not also a fact that they prefer that this margin should be given for pasteurisation to all traders who perform that service rather than that it should be on its present basis?

Mr. Mabane: I thought that that was so, and I think it confirms my view that my hon. and gallant Friend was misinformed.

Captain Gammans: Are these allowances not being paid for something which these firms did for nothing before the war?

Mr. Mabane: No, Sir.

Major York: In view of the obvious waste of public money, I beg to give notice that I will raise this matter on the Adjournment.

Major York: asked the Minister of Food what sum was paid to the London Co-operative Society in self-wholesaling allowances during the past 12 months?

Mr. Mabane: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to the hon. and gallant Member for Hornsey (Captain Gammans) on 1st December.

Major York: Is not the Minister aware that on that occasion there was a demand from the House that those figures should be given, and will he not now give the figures?

Mr. Mabane: I am not aware that there was a demand from the House. I pointed out that it would be invidious to select particular firms and to give the figures of their trade.

Captain Gammans: Is not this public money, and is there any reason why the figures should not be given?

Mr. Mabane: The House will appreciate that in these days, when firms give to public Departments figures of their trade, an impossible position would arise if hon. Members were to inquire about the figures of the trade done by particular firms.

Major York: I beg to give notice that I shall raise this question also upon the Adjournment.

Captain Gammans: asked the Minister of Food by how much the price of milk could have been increased if the £2,400,000 spent during the year ending 31st October, 1943, in self-wholesaling allowances had been paid to the producers?

Mr. Mabane: This Question asks, in another form, for the total gallonage of milk production during the year ended 31st October, 1943. I regret that the publication of such a figure is not in the national interest.

Captain Gammans: Would the Minister say why it is not in the public interest?

Mr. Mabane: It has been determined that during the war figures of agricultural production shall not be published. I can only say that we should be very glad to have the comparable figure of agriculture production in respect of Germany.

Retailers (Registration)

Captain Gammans: asked the Minister of Food whether a register is being kept by his Department of food distributors who have been forced out of business as a result of the war; how many names have been received and whether he can give any indication of the percentage of such traders who are included in the register?

Mr. Mabane: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave on 21st April, 1943, to the hon. Member for Southend-on-Sea (Mr. Channon).

Powell's Products, Ltd.

Mr. McKinlay: asked the Minister of Food the pre-war supplies of jam and sauce distributed in Glasgow by an English firm named Powell; and under what scheme Glasgow manufacturers now produce goods for this firm?

Mr. Mabane: The House would not, I think, expect me to reveal the pre-war turnover of the particular firm in question. I am satisfied, however, that goods are being made for Powell's Products, Ltd., legitimately under a voluntary interchange of manufacture to economise transport. While the scheme is voluntary, it is approved by my Department.

Mr. McKinlay: Is my hon. Friend aware that Powells distributed nothing in Glasgow before the war, that the people there never heard of them until this scheme was put into operation, and is it not a waste of time and energy to ask Glasgow manufacturers to manufacture for a firm with no goodwill in the area?

Mr. Mabane: The hon. Member is not right. In Glasgow this firm's products may not have been heard of because they were distributed in Glasgow under other names, but they distributed their products in Glasgow.

Mr. McKinlay: I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment.

Preserves (Wholesale Distribution)

Mr. McKinlay: asked the Minister of Food whether he is aware that wholesale distributors of preserves are refusing to accept "R" vouchers from retailers; what inquiries he has made into the reasons for this and with what result?

Mr. Mabane: I believe that wholesale distributors were under the impression that the validity of "R" vouchers for the purchase of the supplementary varieties of preserves would expire on 11th December. In view, however, of delays in the issue of these vouchers in certain parts of the country, it has been arranged for the vouchers to be valid for a further period of four weeks, that is, until 8th January, 1944. Trade organisations have recently been advised of this extension.

Mr. McKinlay: Is it not a fact that the reasons given by the travellers for not taking "R" vouchers was that the stuff was not there to issue against the vouchers?

Mr. Mabane: That is substantially the correct reason in many cases.

Apples, London

Mr. Bartle Bull: asked the Minister of Food what representations he has had from Members for agricultural divisions as to why there should be a shortage of apples in the London district when they are rotting in the country; and whether he is satisfied with the existing system of distribution?

Mr. Mabane: I have received no representations from hon. Members such as my hon. Friend suggests, and I have no evidence that the existing methods of dealing with the limited supplies available are unsatisfactory.

Mr. Bull: I hope that my hon. Friend will now receive some.

British Restaurants

Squadron-Leader Errington: asked the Minister of Food whether he is aware that, by reason of the instructions of his Department that food should be cooked seven miles away from the Bootle British Restaurant at which it was served, losses were sustained; and whether he is prepared to take over financial responsibility in respect of the losses incurred?

Mr. Mabane: I am aware that the British Restaurants established by the Bootle County Borough Council were for some time operated in association with cooking depots situated at a distance from the restaurants. I cannot, however, agree that this arrangement, which is operated successfully by other local authorities, was responsible for the losses incurred by the council on its British Restaurants and cooking depots. The reply to the last part of the Question is, No, Sir.

Squadron-Leader Errington: asked the Minister of Food in how many cases and at what cost has his Department implemented its promise that in emergency conditions it would be responsible for any loss sustained by British Restaurants due to such conditions?

Mr. Mabane: Payments on account amounting to £15,450 have been made to four local authorities in respect of losses incurred in the operation of British Restaurants under emergency conditions. The final amounts payable cannot be ascertained until the audit of accounts has been completed.

Squadron-Leader Errington: asked the Minister of Food whether he is aware that in consequence of heavy air raids on Merseyside the Bootle British Restaurants had to be operated in unforeseen conditions for the benefit of other than the citizens of Bootle; and whether he is prepared to implement his undertaking to bear the loss suffered by unforeseen conditions of operation?

Mr. Mabane: Yes, Sir. I am aware that the Bootle County Borough Council had to improvise British Restaurant facilities after heavy air raids in May, 1941, and that these facilities had for a time to be operated under emergency conditions. In view of the nature of the losses incurred, a special investigation has been made and the Council informed that £4,500 will be reimbursed of the total loss of £5,866 sustained during the period ending 30th September, 1941.

Squadron-Leader Errington: Is the hon. Member aware that the total loss was something like £9,000, and will he reconsider the position in the light of that fact?

Mr. Mabane: I think the loss to which the hon. and gallant Member refers was

not incurred during the emergency period. I have stated the total loss during the emergency period.

Tuberculin-Tested Milk (Prices)

Major York: asked the Minister of Food at what price his Department sells tuberculin-tested milk to distributors; what additional margin, if any, is allowed to distributors who wholesale or retail tuberculin-tested milk; and what price is charged to consumers?

Mr. Mabane: T.T milk is sold by the Ministry of Food to first buyers at 2s. 1¼d. a gallon, the buyer providing churns. The maximum additional margin allowed for distribution is 4d. a gallon, of which the wholesaler may not retain more than 2d. per gallon when the retailer buys T.T. milk through a wholesaler. The maximum price to the consumer in England and Wales is 5d. a pint.

Major York: Do I understand from that that the distributor obtains the whole 4d.?

Mr. Mabane: I think that is right, but perhaps the hon. and gallant Member will put that Question down.

Whisky Industry (Control)

Mr. Evelyn Walkden: asked the Minister of Food whether he is aware that much of the cause of the shortage of supplies of whisky and the consequent growth of illicit trading is due to the stopping of supplies of grain and raw materials to produce supplies of whisky for future years; and whether he will now review all the factors of cause, scarcity, price control and future national needs, with a view to imposing a control on every stage of the industry?

Mr. Mabane: No, Sir; without entering into the reasons why whisky is in short supply, which are complex, my right hon. Friend could not agree to the institution of a control such as my hon. Friend suggests.

Mr. Walkden: Is it not a fact that the former Minster of Food, Lord Woolton, made numerous promises after various representations had been made to him? Is nobody going to deal with this very difficult problem? Does not the Ministry intend to handle it properly, instead of making vague promises?

Mr. Mabane: I was answering for my Noble Friend. It is quite certain that whisky is in short supply because the cereals have not been devoted to its production, but the trade are releasing the major part of the supply at proper prices. There is, however, a small amount of whisky which is being sold at high prices, but it would not be justifiable to use manpower to control a matter of that kind.

Mr. Walkden: Is the Minister aware that there will not be any whisky two years from now?

Egg Production (Prices)

Sir Douglas Hacking: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that the commercial producer of eggs at present prices is not getting a reasonable return for his work after meeting increased costs of production; and whether he will look into this matter with a view to providing a remedy?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture (Mr. Tom Williams): Producers' prices for eggs were brought under review in connection with the recent adjustment of agricultural prices. The Government are satisfied that present egg prices provide a reasonable remuneration for producers as a whole and no change in price is at present proposed. As stated in the Press notice issued on 25th November by the Agricultural Departments and the Ministry of Food, egg prices will come up for review from time to time, in consultation with the producers.

Sir D. Hacking: Will the Minister assure the House that his Department desires to encourage this specialised form of agriculture?

Oral Answers to Questions — INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH

Mr. Hutchinson: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works under what conditions he is prepared to grant facilities to firms engaged in the production of technical or scientific products to construct new research laboratories or to extend existing laboratories required to enable such firms to undertake research necessary for the development of their post-war trade?

Mr. Hicks: Subject to the overriding demand of the Government Building Programme and of war damage and other

essential housing works, sympathetic consideration has been given and will be given to applications to construct or extend research laboratories which have the support of the Departments concerned.

Mr. Hutchinson: Does not the Minister consider that the existing procedure involves application to so many Departments that it is very difficult to obtain a decision?

Mr. Lipson: How many applications have been received?

Mr. Hicks: I could not say at the moment how many have been received. Post-war problems have not so far been recognised as having priorities.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: I would like to ask your guidance, Mr. Speaker, in regard to the Business for to-day. In the event of the Motion standing in the name of the Prime Minister being carried, can you give an indication what allocation of time you propose to make among the various Amendments which you are intending to call?

Mr. Speaker: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for asking me that Question. The programme which I suggest to the House must depend for its success upon the co-operation of hon. Members themselves. There are three subjects, and the time is limited. The Government have proposed to give two extra hours, so I propose that the first Amendment goes on until three and a half hours after the commencement of the Sitting and that we have a Division until, say, 15 minutes later. The next Amendment will then go on for two hours and the third Amendment for a further two hours, which should enable us to get the Motion for the Address finished within the time allowed.

Mr. A. Bevan: While appreciating the great difficulties which you have, Mr. Speaker, in a matter of this kind, may I ask whether it is not likely to create rather a serious precedent if the movers of the first Amendment wish to press it to a Division, for you to accept the Motion "That the Vote be now taken" after so short a Debate? I have known Mr. Speaker refuse to take a similar Motion after a whole Friday's discussion, on the ground that


the time given had been inadequate, and it is rather serious if we are to have such a Motion accepted after only two and a half hours' Debate.

Earl Winterton: On that point of Order. As I understood your ruling, Mr. Speaker, you did not suggest that you would accept a Motion, "That the Question be now put." I think my hon. Friend's question is based upon a misapprehension. All that you asked was that the House should co-operate.

Mr. Bevan: The only way in which the House can co-operate is not to challenge a Motion, "That the Question be now put." If Mr. Speaker accepts the Motion after such a short Debate, he is going to be put in a very unfortunate position.

Mr. Speaker: I hope that with good will on all sides I shall not be asked to accept a Motion of that sort, and the difficulty will not therefore arise.

Mr. Maxton: I am not quite sure whether the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) desires that the time given to the first Amendment should be shorter or longer, but the hon. Gentlemen who are associated with me in that Amendment are agreed that they want it to go to a Division, after a much shorter Debate than we would desire, but in order to suit the general convenience of the House. I should not like to see a precedent of that kind established, but we take it that we shall have support for our composite Amendment from all those who have criticised the Government so consistently since the beginning of the discussion of the Motion for the Address.

Mr. Gallacher: In the Debates that have taken place on the King's Speech and the various Amendments has it not been the case that many very long and repetitive speeches have been made, and is it not possible for Members to confine themselves to the minimum of time, as happens in Scottish Debates? They could get their points across and get speeches concluded without unnecessary delay.

Mr. Speaker: What the hon. Member suggests is a counsel of perfection. I should be very glad to see it followed. I would point out that yesterday, for instance, speeches averaged more than half-an-hour each. I can only draw the attention of hon. Members to the matter.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House) for two hours after the hour appointed for the interruption of Business."—[Mr. Attlee.]

Orders of the Day — KING'S SPEECH

DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS [Eighth Day]

Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question.—[24th November.]
That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, as followeth:
Most Gracious Sovereign,
We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and Northern Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."—[Commander Brabner.]

Question again proposed.

COMMON OWNERSHIP

Sir Richard Acland: I beg to move, at the end of the Question, to add:
But humbly regret that the Gracious Speech indicates that Your Majesty's Ministers do not realise that private ownership of all substantial resources must now be supplanted by common ownership if future wars and poverty are to be eliminated and human brotherhood more nearly approached.
Members will appreciate that I feel a certain measure of responsibility on this occasion since it is the first occasion on which we have had an opportunity of presenting in the form of an Amendment really important issues on which a comparatively few of us in this House believe, rightly or wrongly, that we speak for relatively a considerably larger number of people outside; and that it will not be possible to present those issues in moving or seconding this Amendment in speeches of the order of five or ten minutes or so. Nevertheless, as I have said, we will do our best.
This Amendment is a Vote of Censure. It will be pressed to a Division in order to show the House that we want

a new Government and in order to show the country that we want a new House of Commons. It will be appreciated that the issue raised by this Amendment has nothing whatever to do with the issue publicly debated between the right hon. and gallant Member for Thanet (Captain Balfour) on one side and the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary on the other. Today the alternatives before the House are the out-and-out ownership of all great productive resources on one side, and some attempt at public control over private ownership, which is the manifestly declared policy of the Coalition. We will find this issue now is, and in the coming years more and more will be, the supreme political issue in this country. Opposition to this Government in the next 12 months will consistently develop in and around this issue, nor can any bridge between the two sides be built when the Prime Minister suggests that certain unspecified industries and when the Home Secretary suggests that four specified industries shall be brought as a matter of mere technical convenience under some form of public utility corporation.
We on this side are dealing to-day with all industries outside a few specialised, fancy or experimental trades, and in each industry we are dealing with all undertakings down to but excluding what can properly be called the little man or the owner-worker. Excluding these, it is our view that all undertakings, all industries, shall be removed from private ownership to common ownership, and when we say that this shall be done now we mean it should be started now and concluded not later than, shall we say, 1960.

Mr. Selley: Will the hon. Member explain—

Sir R. Acland: It will be wholly impossible to co-operate in the time table you suggest, Mr. Speaker, if I go into side issues with one interruption and another. I regret this, but in view of the time table there is no alternative.
It will be in vain for Government speakers to suggest that on this issue the House and the country are united but that the Government wisely prefer the method of evolution. I too prefer the methods of evolution provided that the methods are properly understood.
This question is one of such importance that I will ask the House to bear with me for a moment if I deal with it briefly and therefore with less than immaculate scientific accuracy. None the less, in general, it is true that in all nature and in human society evolution develops in each kind from the less efficient to the more efficient, thence to the most efficient and the most supremely powerful of its kind. But this most supremely powerful is also completely inadaptable in terms of the new kind. It is simultaneously the climax and the dead-end. From such a dead-end evolution has shown us that nature must make a clean break, must cast back and find some other creature less powerful in terms of the old order but more adaptable in terms of the new. Thus from the amœba nature developed first the inefficient fish, then the efficient fish, and finally the shark or dead-end. From the shark no development was possible. Nature had to find the inefficient but adaptable creature which crawled on the bottom of the sea but which one day crawled out. By similar processes nature formed the amphibions, dinosaurs and reptiles, and similarly man. [Interruption.] I must point out that the outbursts of applause, though appreciated, are adding to the time table of the House. In human history we have seen that the feudal system ran to its dead end in the powerful but unadaptable feudal barons and emperors. From 1550 to 1790 the powerful inadaptability of these creatures led to—

Mr. Magnay: On a point of Order. The hon. Member has left the fishy subject he was on, but is it in Order for a lecture on biology to be read to this House?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Baronet is entitled to make his case in his own way.

Sir R. Acland: I would appeal to hon. Members. This matter is important, and the historical forces which have led up to the present crisis are really relevant. I would like to give my view of those forces on which hon. Members can comment in the course of the Debate. I think it is not, in general, inaccurate to say that it was the powerful inadaptability of the dead end of the feudal system which led, all over Europe, to one crisis after

another, in and through which humanity discovered a new source of dynamic life for the next stage of our human journey.
I speak of the greatness of our own country, the massive contribution we have made to the material and spiritual development of mankind and the contribution which we may make in the future. For 400 years, as much as any other people and more than most, we have led humanity. No people can deny us that claim. But we led humanity in these last 400 years for the precise reason that, sooner than any other people, we followed the true law of evolution by breaking from the dead end of the feudal system, casting about and finding the merchant venturer—making and exchanging, trading and sailing, exploring and fighting all over the face of the known globe.
To-day the merchant venturer, under the laws of evolution, has evolved the I.C.I., Powell Duffryn, Standard Oil, the Iron & Steel Federation and United Malayan Tins & Rubbers, Incorporated. These creatures bear all the hall marks of a dead end. They are supremely powerful and efficient of their own kind. They were evolved to meet the needs of an age of inevitable scarcity. They have proved themselves completely inadaptable to the needs of an age of potential plenty. For 20 years between the wars, while five-sixths of this globe was dominated in its economic, political and social life by the activities of these creatures, we had anything from 20,000,000 to 50,000,000 human beings unemployed, money lying idle, factories and land lying idle, raw materials potentially or actually available and millions in want.
From those circumstances came world crisis. But because the improvement in transport and communications has reduced this world of ours to a single unity, because a greater number of more nearly educated people take part in all human developments and for many other reasons, crisis does not come this time scattered in space in different countries, or scattered in time over several centuries. The crisis comes this time in one decade, 1929 to 1939, and it comes to all humanity at once. What is a crisis? Professor Macmurray has said that an individual human being faces a crisis when he discovers and is brought hard up against the fact that his habits will no longer support his purpose. Humanity has a purpose. It


is our purpose to achieve the ultimate brotherhood of man, to which some will add and some will not add, "under the fatherhood of God." That is our purpose. We achieve it through struggle and through sufferings, through trial and error. It is, of course, natural that those born in the reign of Queen Victoria, including all those who occupy the Government Front Bench, naturally suppose that we can still persevere towards that purpose under the social, political and economic habits of their age. But this is not so. We do face a crisis, and as in the case of the individual who faces his crisis there are three alternatives. We can go mad, we can abandon our purpose, or we can change our habits. International war is a mixture between an outbreak of insanity and the growing pains—the labour pains—of a new order. Fascism is a mixture between insanity and abandonment of purpose. The policy of the Coalition Government is, at all costs, to avoid any possible upset, in other words to maintain our habits, which involves, automatically, the abandonment of our human purpose.
We thus have two alternatives. Either we are or we are not a degenerate people. It is not yet known whether we are fighting this war heroically and well on the credit balance of our past traditions. We may be, for they are proud traditions and worth fighting for. It is not yet proved whether we have a dynamic contribution to make to the future of the human family. We may have, but if we have not, then we will accept the Coalition policy, which will confirm our degeneracy. We will lose our purpose and, because it is not family allowances but a sense of communal creative purpose which gives birth to purposeful life, our birth trends will continue as they are at present, and it may be that babies born this year will live to see this island peopled by some 8,000,000 to 10,000,000 old gentlemen of both sexes and all ages. [Interruption.] No, I mean old gentlemen, because they are more deadly dull than old ladies.
On the other hand, there is the alternative that we are not a degenerate people, in which case we will find our democratic alternative. We will learn the true lesson of evolution, and break from our dead-end, and find our new sources of life. I can imagine that hon. Members on the other side will criticise what I am

saying on the ground that, in war, the creatures I am criticising have shown a certain measure of adaptability. But these creatures did not change their habits when 50,000,000 human beings stood rotting. They modified their habits when 500,000,000 human beings started shooting. That is my definition of inadaptability. We are told that we shall learn the lessons of this war and apply the lessons of war experience to post-war reconstruction. Let us look at what these lessons are. I will mention four. We have learned in war that public control of private ownership is exactly equivalent to private ownership of public control. We have learned in war, but only in war, that these private owners of our public control are willing to do their best to direct their industries according to their lights in the general direction of public policy. We have learned in war, but only in war, that the financial creatures of the present system will tolerate a situation in which public debt is increased at the rate of over £2,000,000,000 a year; and, supremely important, we have learned that in war, but only in war, our working population, from production manager to apprentice, will operate this system, not with great enthusiasm, but with fewer stoppages than at any other time. Every one of these lessons arises and endures only in war. Not one of them has the slightest relevance to any of the major problems which we face in peace. It is for this reason that the Government are unable to announce any proposal, any agreed, detailed plan, for dealing with any one of our post-war problems which will simultaneously satisfy the members of the Armed Forces and secure the assent of the creatures of whom I have spoken. The Government are endeavouring to preserve the unendurable and to bend the inflexible, and that is why the Minister without Portfolio emerges from time to time from his mountainous labours and brings forth nothing but windy promises. Nothing can be done within the framework of an absolute dead-end.
I say to the hon. Members of this House that now and in the next two years this country of ours will face a greater internal danger than at any period in its history, and nothing but unlimited courage in our leadership will see us through the problems which we have to face. This endless turning of every stone


and exploring of every avenue to produce yet another non-operative Royal Commission Report will lead to such frustration in our people as must produce the very direst consequences. I believe it is the duty of our people to take this situation seriously and to realise that from our present stage there is no safe and foolproof remedy; to realise that we must follow the laws of evolution, break from the dead-end and explore and cast around for the new source of dynamic life. Where shall we find it? We shall find it, first of all, in our workers and, particularly, in the kind of man who becomes automatically a fitter and rigger in the R.A.F., in the kind of man who becomes a shop steward on the production council of one of our war factories. We shall find it in the research chemist and engineer, in the production manager and the technician, and in the administrator who understands dynamic and positive administration when he is let off the long, long chain which runs back to the dead hand of one of Sir Horace Wilson's Whitehall nominees. We shall find it in the psychologists who have pushed their science beyond its teething troubles and can apply their certain knowledge, not only to a few cranks, but to pre-O.C.T.U. courses and to whole Army intakes. We shall also find it in those Christians who are impelled by their Christianity to take part in the daily life struggle of our people and, perhaps, we may find a little of it in those politicians who give up wishful thinking and understand that politics is a question of making an impartial, objective, scientific study of the situation as it actually is.
Now the point is that all these people are at their posts or ready to take up their posts in the new age. Our revolution will have little or nothing in common with the revolution that took place in Soviet Russia. First, because we have what they had not, the machinery to make it democratically; but, much more important, because we do not set out to create a new society. The new order is already there. The suggestion that we are going to destroy all the traditions that are fine in Britain's past is completely misconceived. The idea that we are going to call in loyal and painstaking Treasury officials and ask them to administer British industry is an Aunt Sally which exists only in the speakers' notes published by

Palace Chambers and nowhere else at all. It is only necessary for us to sweep aside the present rights of big ownership in order to release the men of whom I have spoken, the very men who are running our industries today, so as to set them free of the cramping influence persistently maintained by this coalition. If every owner of £10,000 worth of property died intestate and without heirs to-night, the workers and technicians, the salaried officials if you like, of British industry would run the whole show to-morrow morning without pausing for a breath.
But these men of whom I have spoken all have one thing in common. Every one of them can do his dynamic, creative, co-operative work within the framework of common ownership. Every one is in one way or another distorted by the system which this Government seeks to preserve. Nobody on the other side, I imagine, would expect me to appeal to a brigadier-general, but I do appeal to Brigadier-General John Rees. I have never met him, and I have not his permission to make this appeal, but if he will appoint any panel of the psychologists who are now serving the Army and industry so well, they will give you the straight answer that it is the divided loyalty of management, torn between the claims of production on the one hand and private profit and private capital values on the other, which to-day effectually destroys the possibility of organising and running our factories as united, co-operative, creative teams serving the common good. Or I can appeal to Professor E. H. Carr, in his book "The Conditions of Peace," where he says, on page III:
Our civilisation is in danger of perishing for lack of something with which we have dispensed for 200 years, but with which we can dispense no longer, a deliberate and avowed moral purpose involving the call for common sacrifice for a recognised common good.
For the second time in the memory of every hon. and right hon. Gentleman here owners and workers, and the sons and daughters of owners and workers, have gone out and fought and died as brothers in a common cause. But of this country of ours, for which they are fighting, 85 to 86 per cent. is owned by 6 per cent. or 7 per cent. of the people who live in it; and, in spite of high taxation and Death Duties, this figure does not improve. Furthermore, the complete control


through the biggest ownership of all steadily slips into an ever smaller and smaller group of hands. No high moral purpose is possible for our people, no call for common effort, for common sacrifice for a recognized common good, can be made until this country is ours, not in Ministerial speeches but in fact and in law. Without this, as E. H. Carr says, "the economic machine refuses to run," our contribution to civilisation will perish, we will become a purposeless people.
How will the Government reply to me? I forecast that they will reply in the name of freedom and of initiative. Let me speak briefly of those things. Freedom cannot be defined as giving to each man the right to do and have exactly what he likes so long as he does not hurt anybody else, for the very good reason that if you add up everything which every man would like to do and have, the whole world could not produce it; and if it did, we would not find that it was freedom. We are in a tough world, not an easy world, to-day. We have an almighty job on hand to win this war, to build this country as it ought to be, and to repay the debt which we owe to several millions of coloured people for over a century of sweated labour which they have done on our behalf and under our directions. This is a big task, and, facing that task, we will create freedom only if we realise that freedom consists in creating those conditions in which men and women will want to do the things that have to be done. It is a fact which hon. Members opposite can deplore but cannot change that all the best of our workers and technicians to-day will never want to do what has to be done within the framework of the present monopoly capitalism, even if it theoretically controls itself through various Government Departments.
As to individual initiative, I would say to hon. Members opposite, let them fear not. In 400 years feudalism created and taught us the value of law and order. The feudalists defended their system in the name of law and order. They lost their system, but law and order had been learned, and they emerged, it may be in altered forms, in the new dynamic order of capitalism. Four hundred years of capitalism have rendered us great services. Under capitalism we have carved out the great inventions which now offer us an age of plenty. We have learned the value

of individual initiative. Monopoly capitalists defend this now frustrating system in the name of individual initiative. They will lose their system, but individual initiative will emerge, it may be in altered forms, into the new system, because we have learned it.
In a short speech—I trust reasonably short in the circumstances—I have dealt only with basic forces which impel us to make this change. I could not conceivably have entered into all the details, but if hon. Members opposite wish to trip me up on detailed points, they are in a better position than Job, who complained that his adversary had not written a book. I have written several. If it would not have displeased you, Sir, I would have been happy to recite from cover to cover two books, in which you will find "What it Will be Like" and "How it Can be Done." Those books of mine are, of course, subject to democratic correction, first by the organisation to which I belong, and then by the people. They will be accepted, rejected, corrected, in the test of experience and subject to the regular and proper British habit and practice of advancing in a pre-determined direction by the method of trial and error, and (as we have found in the past) of success. But, for what it is worth, I have stated my own detailed proposals more specifically than almost any other man in this House, and certainly far more definitely than the Government on whom I am moving a Vote of Censure.
I must, however, deal with one detailed point. That is the issue of compensation. Owners, as I see it, will not be able to claim in their own right any compensation based on the alleged present value of their property, nor will compensation ever be paid in the form of 3 per cent. Government Bonds. On the contrary, compensation will be related, on a steeply downward sliding scale, to present income, as disclosed in Income Tax returns. Regarding small savings as arising in most cases from genuine past personal sacrifices, I would suggest that the small saving, the first £100 worth of capital, whatever form it may take, would be compensated at the rate of 100 per cent. As the amount got larger, the rate would be 50 per cent., 10 per cent., 5 per cent., and ultimately nil. It is my view that there should be an absolute compensation ceiling of £1,000 a year, which would


terminate on the death of the present owner, so that in one generation from now all sons shall start from scratch, which is justice in the name of God and man. I hope that these proposals will be understood. [An HON. MEMBER: "Is that £1,000 tax free?"] Yes, that £1,000 income will be tax free.
I must confess to hon. Members above the Gangway that, perhaps owing to the misfortunes of party or education, I did not speak for the Socialism of the British people in the years 1920–1939. Because of the failures of many people who are now my friends and colleagues, Socialism in those years could not win a majority of our people, and therefore it conducted its propaganda and its activity towards the winning of the maximum possible concessions within the present system. But I believe I am in some, way speaking to-day for the Socialism of the British people in 1943. This is a Socialism which knows that it can, and must, win out and out victory within the next few months, or years at most. This is a Socialism which is not tinkering with Capitalism. It means to reject all the principles, all the practices, all the moral and economic criteria of capitalism in order to put in their place the principles, the practices, the moral and economic criteria of Socialism. It is this Socialism which I plead with hon. Members above the Gangway they, can and they must lead to victory now—and they must begin before the end of 1944. Otherwise, greater forces than theirs even will take control of the situation, not because anybody wills it, but because inevitable forces cannot be deflected by any human decisions of mere man. If my hon. Friends opposite had not desired to witness the victory of the forces of which I am speaking, they would have been well advised to support the League of Nations and to frustrate Fascist aggression in 1932 and 1936, when it could have been stopped without this world-wide war. I will quote some words of Carlyle:
It is wonderful how long the rotten will hold together, provided that it is not touched.
I will quote some words of a contemporary of Carlyle's:
Just as exposure to the atmosphere reduces all mummies to instant decomposition, so war passes stern judgment on all institutions which have outlived their vitality.

The institutions which this Government tries to preserve have outlived their vitality. The British people have not outlived their vitality, and the institutions and not the British people will give way.

Mr. Maxton: I beg to second the Amendment.
I want to congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend—[HON. MEMBERS: "Not 'gallant'"].—I beg your pardon; I should have remembered that hon. Members opposite do not allow the word "gallant" to be applied to privates or non-commissioned officers. All the gallantry is reserved for the commissioned ranks.

Commander Sir Archibald Southby: My hon. Friend knows that that is not correct. Any person who wears His Majesty's uniform is entitled to be referred to as "gallant."

Mr. Maxton: I am sorry then that there should have been any complaint. My hon. and gallant Friend may congratulate himself on the fact that, although this Amendment has been allotted a very small portion of the time of the House devoted to the discussion of the Gracious Speech, it has commanded during the period in which the hon. Gentleman has been speaking the biggest House of any opening speech during the time that the King's Speech has been discussed. I only hope that I shall be able to retain in the Chamber some fraction of the House which my hon. Friend has had, against the very powerful counter-attraction which exists outside. I second the Amendment with very great satisfaction. My hon. Friends in this part of the House have been on this job somewhat longer and with considerable persistence, and, I am afraid, over a period of 21 years with a minimum of result. We have seen the House always taking the wiser course, always refusing to move along reckless courses such as are suggested in this Amendment. It is too big for them. Always British Conservatism, in the most plausible and persuasive way, has rejected the idea of attempting to get at the organisation of the industrial, economic and social forces of this country in a big way, and always with small adjustments, and always that small adjustment had scarcely been made when its complete


inadequacy was fully demonstrated. I can remember a Conservative Prime Minister walking in here one day, and, in talking about the cure of unemployment, announced with great satisfaction, as evidence that we were going to solve the problem of unemployment, that our market gardeners had put broccoli on to the French market before the French market gardeners could do so. I can remember a Conservative Minister of Labour coming here one day to an unemployment Debate and telling us how Conservatism was wisely tackling this problem. It could not be done in any big way. The problem had to be split up and tackled in detail, and he said, "I have been successful"—I am not quoting his exact words—"in taking a Welsh miner"—a skilled man who was digging coal and producing an essential commodity—"and giving him a course of training in one of our training centres, and to-day we have been able to secure an appointment for him as a handyman on a gentleman's estate in the Highlands." [Laughter.] Hon. Members opposite may laugh. It was hailed as a great triumph—the broccoli and the handyman were solving unemployment.

Mr. Molson: Getting rabbits out of hats.

Mr. Maxton: You see how we have advanced, because the Minister of Labour, as distinct from his predecessor, is now going to get miners out of hats. From 1921 up to the outbreak of war the Conservative Party in this House was always going to tackle this problem by wise, moderate and serious adjustment rather than in the big, wholesale, revolutionary way. And always during that period the numbers of unemployed were counted in millions, and it was regarded as being a tremendous advance when this nation felt itself able to pay them an unemployment allowance of 17s. a week. In this wise, moderate adjustment of the existing system of private ownership, 10s. a week is still the sum that it is felt they can pay to an old age pensioner. That is all that 120 years of modern capitalism, largely directed by Conservative anti-social doctrine, feels itself able to guarantee for the old people who have reached the final years of their life. The whole trend of the Debate on the Gracious Speech has

been again the idea of only dealing with a half or a quarter of the problem.
We come to the House with this Amendment and say, "Cannot we be big enough to face the changes of our time and to realise that humanity in this particular is well poised for going forward into new ways of working, new ways of living and new kinds of social relationships?" I shall listen with very great interest to the Postmaster-General, who I understand will reply to this Debate on behalf of the Government. It will be interesting to hear the head of this great publicly-owned Service explaining how impossible public ownership is and also explaining how it is impossible to get men of the highest capacities and qualities to take control of publicly-owned enterprise. That is one of the arguments with which we have been confronted on many occasions. The best people would not be prepared to give their services to the running of a publicly-owned enterprise as they do to a privately-owned enterprise. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman will explain just the difference, how it has come about that the Post Office has been exceptional in this matter and has been able to command the highest abilities that exist in this country for the control and production of that particular Department.

Mr. Silverman: Does the hon. Member mean, in this House?

Mr. Maxton: I am talking now about the definite direction and control of an industry with a high central direction. The Minister himself will agree that, as far as the high central direction of the industry is concerned, we have been able to obtain a man of the highest qualifications for the job. I do not want to bring the discussion on to that level but to maintain it on the level that was laid down by my hon. Friend in moving the Amendment. I have watched for the period of time that I have been here Parliament after Parliament evading the logic of public ownership. I have seen Mines Act after Mines Act being put through this House on every occasion. It was a logical and intelligent thing for the nation to own this public enterprise which is of so much fundamental importance to our own national life. Always something less has been done, with the result that to-day we find ourselves at a very difficult period in national life, with an industry that does not meet the needs of the nation


—a privately owned industry, in which the individuals concerned have been more determined and interested about the necessity of their ownership than any other. And yet to-day we find it failing in three important directions in which any industry should progress, (1) failing to give to its men who work in it adequate standards of life, (2) failing to provide the nation with the product that the nation requires, and, (3) failing to maintain the health and safety of the men who spend their lives in that occupation. It is all because years ago we were not prepared to face up to the fact that this industry requires to be certain of ownership and direction by the whole body of the people, acting through their properly organised central direction and not by isolated groups of individuals trying to make the maximum of profit out of one particular portion of the industry that they happen to own. Similarly with banking. The Deputy-Prime Minister gibed at me in one of the Debates that on the Floor of the House of Commons I wished to introduce a Bill for the nationalisation of the Bank of England and that it did not achieve the distinction of a First Reading. That is true. I took the trouble of drafting in detail a Bill for the nationalisation of the Bank of England. My hon. Friend beside me says he is not going to agree to pay compensation. Perhaps they will wish before they are finished that they had accepted my Bill of 20 odd years ago, because it did provide for compensation. It was ruled out on a technical objection by the Speaker of that day.

Mr. Molson: It ought to have been a private Bill.

Mr. Maxton: I do not know what the Rules are about criticising past Speakers, but I thought that that was the lousiest Ruling that I had ever heard. It is just because that was not done and the nation does not own the banking system that we have all this ballyhoo about Savings Certificates, Spitfire weeks, and Dreadnought weeks. Everybody knows that really a nation owning its own banking system from top to bottom would arrange all these matters by proper directions to the ledger clerk. I note that the noble Lord the Member for South Dorset (Viscount Hinchingbrooke), in a very striking speech in the course of the Debate yesterday, was satisfied that the Bank of England should remain in private

ownership and that the relations are so close and so good that to all intents and purposes the Bank of England is a national institution. That has a fair measure of truth in it as long as it is the same kind of people who are owning the Bank of England as are owning the Government. But supposing it was the Trades Union Congress that owned the Bank of England, does the hon. Gentleman think that the relationship would be quite as good?

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: The Trades Union Congress have their representatives in the Government.

Mr. Maxton: But not representatives on the Bank of England, and that is where the shoe pinches. I can remember the so-called economic crisis of 1930–31 that brought the Labour Government, of pleasant memory, down and led to the formation of the first National Government. That to me was a very disastrous happening which has had a bad and continuous history ever since, getting this House into a frame of mind of large-scale compromise, not merely compromise in detail, but compromise on matters of principle, and resulting in a pettifogging unethical output of work from this House. At the time when the Labour Government was brought down the Tory Opposition was one of the most unscrupulous Oppositions that I have ever seen in my life; and, unfortunately, the poor folk who sat opposite, when they tried to meet them, were just toyed with, and, because they were afraid of their own Socialist principles, were rushed into an impossible position and took what I regarded as the disastrous way out of it. But the Conservative opposition in that day was indubitably aided in its smashing of the Labour Government by financial sabotage directly operated by the Bank of England in collaboration with the American banks on Wall Street.

Sir Granville Gibson: The hon. Member is quite aware that what brought down the Government in 1931 was the fact that the American and French Governments, who controlled the gold of the world, refused to grant credits to this country of £40,000,000 each unless the Government of the day altered their spending policy.

Mr. Maxton: That is one description of what happened. It puts the evil geniuses of finance outside this country. It was here on this Bench that the agitation started to show that they would show the world that this country was running into financial bankruptcy because there was £100,000,000 debt on the Unemployment Insurance Fund. This nation going down because of £100,000,000 debt on the Unemployment Insurance Fund! [Interruption.] It is not funny, or perhaps my sense of humour is contorted. Now, when we are piling up debt at the rate of thousands of millions a year, hundreds of millions a month, we are financially solvent. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—with gold enough to stand between the U.S.S.R. anti the U.S.A. and say we are equal partners. In fact, if anything, we are something more than that.

Mr. Magnay: We started fighting for freedom first. That is the reason.

Mr. Maxton: When the tumult and fighting have died down and the captains and kings have departed, and the unemployed queues begin to line up again, and you start scrambling for world markets, try to remind your two associates that you were the first to start. With financial control in the hands of private capitalist concerns this country was nearly brought to ruin in 1931, and, if the position now is as indicated by the laughter of hon. Members opposite, when we have a population working 100 per cent. when, as we were told no later than Friday, there is more being taken out of the soil of the country than ever before in the form of agricultural produce, when our shipyards are producing at a rate never previously achieved, when every branch of industry is going forward, we are financially insolvent, it only supports my hon. Friend's argument that your banking system should not be in the hands of people who cannot show a decent balance sheet for a prosperous business.
My hon. Friend has laid down various conceptions of how the change over can take place and how industry can be run. I have never had the faintest doubt or difficulty in my mind of how industry would be run if it were publicly owned and controlled. My only difficulty has been to see a desire on the part of the people to have it publicly owned and controlled and, if there had been any doubt

about the possibility of a nation running on the basis of public ownership, surely Soviet Russia has demonstrated beyond the possibility of argument that, while there may be defects in their political methods, while there may be different ethical standards as between the Russian people and ourselves, there cannot be any possible argument that they have shown how under public ownership they can achieve miracles of production. And they started from the basis of a very largely illiterate people and a primitive peasant population. They had a limited knowledge of industry and practically no knowledge of political life or political organisation. They had to start from scratch. In this country we have had the longest experience of industry of any country in the world, and we have had the longest experience of responsible political government in the hands of the majority of the people. We have all possible advantages which come from a very highly educated and very intelligent population, because the population of this country is the most intelligent in the world. With all these advantages, this nation having taken ownership and control of the essentials of the industrial life of the nation, the land, the banks, the railways, the raw materials, control of external trade, into their hands and released a tremendous moral force among the people through the consciousness of their share in the responsibility for the general direction of the economic life of the nation, there is no reason why the real wealth turned out by an organised nation, with the hearty co-operation and sense of responsibility of its citizens, should not reach heights never previously attained and why that wealth cannot be fairly distributed amongst all those who are prepared to take part in the general life of the nation, abolishing your poverty and unemployment and making it easy to get the co-operation of peoples in other parts of the world.

Mr. Beverley Baxter: I am sure the hon. Member would not wish to mislead the House. He quotes railways. State railways are all badly run, as he knows. In Canada there are the C.P.R. and the C.N.R. Is there a single Member of the House who can imagine for a moment that the Post Office is run in any way as it would be run under private enterprise?

Mr. Maxton: Take the points in order. The C.P.R. in Canada is not as successful as the Canadian National Railways. One is publicly owned and the other privately. I think what the hon. Member says is an exaggeration. If it were true, I think it would be because the control of the C.P.R. has been primarily under Scotland, but really it is not true that publicly-owned railways are badly run. In the West of Scotland they have the dirtiest, ugliest stations to be found anywhere. I have had to change at Grantham and Kettering in the middle of the night. The German railways were nationally owned before the Hitler régime. Does the hon. Member say that Cologne station was not a pleasure to be in as compared with Euston? I have not been in Canada, but I have travelled from one end of Cape Colony to the other on a State, national railway. Everything was planned for me in advance, including hotel bookings and conveyance from station to hotel, arranged in the most masterly fashion. I admit that it was a Dutchman who did it. But in any case that is not the argument. The hon. Member finishes up with a denunciation of the Post Office. I think the Post Office is a most wonderful institution, having regard to the various duties that we have piled on it in the last few years. It covers everything, from old age pensions to dog licences, motor licences and service men's allowances. I think it is a great example. There is nothing in private enterprise that can look at it, if the young ladies behind the counter would only be a little more human. That is the only change that I personally would ask for and I am hoping that under the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's régime that change will be taking place.
Not only does public ownership offer possibilities of increasing wealth to its maximum, but it also provides opportunities of intelligent and decent distribution of wealth so that the old age pensioner will not have to live on 10s. while I receive £600 and some one else has £600,000 a year. It is unjustifiable. No intelligent person who measures peoples' qualities with reference to the incomes that they are drawing will say that 10s. a week is what the old man of 65 or 70 is worth whereas so-and-so gets £100,000 because his capacity is so many hundreds of thousands of times greater. I hope we

have all got beyond that. Public ownership can secure a decent distribution and an equalitarian sense so far as economics are concerned. I am not saying, however, that you ought to be brought down to one dull dead level of uniformity in mind or outlook or attitude or activity. I am not asking for that. As a matter of fact, we assume that there will be a greater development of personality under this system than there is at the present time, because the system to-day cribs, cabins and confines personal development. Above all, the system we advocate gives opportunities of decent economic relations between nation and nation. If we are going back to private capitalism, we go back to competition and scramble. If hon. Members opposite say that we are going to enter into trade, commercial and economic agreements between America, Great Britain and Russia—and that is indicated by the latest views that we have had flashed across to us—and if we are going to enter into long-term alliances of an economic and social kind, we cannot deliver our part of the bargain if we are privately owned and trying to work the competitive system. We can only do it if we are an organised nation. We cannot do it if we stick to the shibboleths of private enterprise inside the nation.
So far as outward relations are concerned, if we examine shipbuilding, which is the key industry of a part of the country I represent in this House, we will find that the shipbuilding capacity of the world is such to-day that it can build in one year as much tonnage as sailed the seas in the whole Mercantile Marine of the world in pre-war days. That tonnage was only half used. The big proportion of it was lying idle. To-day in one year the world can build all the tonnage of a new Mercantile Marine as large as that which sailed the seas before the war. When it is built a ship has a lifetime of at least 25 years. Therefore, a year's building will supply the world with all the ships it wants for 25 years. I want to know what is to happen to the shipbuilders for the other 24 years. What do they do? They start scrambling for the small amount of shipbuilding that is put down each year afterwards. Under the system of capitalist private enterprise they scamble for the repair work and what small amount of new tonnage is required. That is competition, and when competition starts you come up to the Clyde and


say, "Look here, we are not getting the orders in the world's markets. That is because you riveters, platers and shipwrights are getting too big wages and too short hours and your output is not good enough. You will have to get on a lower level so that we can compete on ecomonic terms with other nations." That is what you hold out. If you insist on the maintenance of private ownership and competition, you insist on our going back to the old scramble for property and to the hardest working people leading the most damnable lives. Up to this moment, as the King's Speech shows, the Government have not looked at the future economic organisation of this nation on the big scale that is urgently necessary, having regard to the age in which we live and the problems to be confronted and overcome. I ask the House to indicate to the Government their desire for bigger ways, bigger actions and bigger scope in statesmanship, as indicated in the Amendment, by supporting the Amendment in the Division Lobby.

Mr. Lionel Berry: It is with no less than the normal amount of reluctance that I rise to speak for the first time, but I am fortified by the knowledge that you, Sir, and hon. Members are renowned for the great kindness and indulgence that they give to Members on such occasions as this. I have listened with great interest to the two speeches which have been made in moving and seconding the Amendment. While some of us were a little puzzled by some of the arguments that the Mover put forward—some of his scientific and biological arguments were not quite as clear as they might have been—we are agreed that in moving and seconding this Amendment the two hon. Members have done it with absolute sincerity and that they believe in what they preach. I hope that they will do me the honour of believing that, while venturing to disagree with them, I put forward my views with equal sincerity. The Gracious Speech refers to post-war reconstruction on broad lines and we are not yet in a position to know the full extent of the Government's plans. Measures to tide over the difficult problems of the transition from war to peace are promised. We all know the real anxiety that exists among men and women at sea, in the air, on land and on the home front as to what their position

will be when they return to normal peace-time conditions.
What do these men and women really want? I believe, from my own Army experience and contact with my constituents, that they have a pretty shrewd idea of the kind of world they expect to come back to. I do not believe that they are looking for a modern Utopia or even for what was picturesquely described as "a land fit for heroes to live in." What they desire and what they have a right to demand are conditions in which they are well housed, well fed and given ample opportunities to earn a living. I do not think that they want to come back to the type of existence which is promised them by hon. Members supporting the Amendment. They want, above all, a chance to justify themselves and a country which will give them every opportunity, encouraging their efforts and enabling them to play their part as conscientious citizens. To suggest that common ownership is the only solution to our problems and that by its application wars and poverty are to be eliminated is to put forward an argument that belittles the dignity of man. Man has a natural right to own property, and to seek to reduce his status to one common level is to create an evil even worse than that which hon. Members opposite are trying to remedy.
In this war Parliament of its own free will gave the Executive complete control over all persons and property, to use them as they thought fit in the national emergency. People submitted to the hardships and difficulties which this meant, and they were prepared to endure them because of the obvious danger which faced the country. There is no intention in their minds, however, that it should be a permanent state of affairs. The very exercise of these powers at the present moment will complicate the transition from war to peace conditions. Obviously some of the powers must be retained for a short time after the end of hostilities if we are to avoid a state of chaos at home, but they should be removed at the first possible moment. Hon. Gentlemen opposite do not share that view. They think that these powers should be continued for all time and that to have a regimented people is to approach nearer to human brotherhood. The ideal of human brotherhood is a noble one, but I do not think the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment would seriously challenge


the desire, for example, of the Catholic Church to attain that ideal. The principle that guides the Catholic Church in this context is that famous Encyclical of Leo XIII:
Every man has by nature the right to possess property as his own. It is impossible to reduce human society to one level.
It may well be retorted that there exists no wish to deprive the ordinary man or woman of property but that the State, which is after all another name for common ownership, should own "all substantial resources." That is a vague definition, and I do not think the Mover made it quite clear. Although he talked about excluding the small trader, he did not make it clear where the line was to be drawn. What guarantee is there that common ownership would eliminate the possibility of wars in the future? Is there any evidence that if Britain had had a socialised economy before this war the war could have been averted? Would the Germans have held their hands or could they have been forced to hold their hands just by the mere fact that common ownership had displaced private ownership in this country? The trouble surely is that a Socialist economy would be much more likely to land the country in war than to keep it out of war, because if any sort of trade dispute arose it would at once involve the State. We must look to a different means to eliminate warfare as an instrument of national policy. One such means is to show all mankind the absolute futility of war from the universal point of view, and the second is to raise, if it can be done, the moral altitude of all peoples until they come to regard war as a crime against God and their fellow men.
Taking the third point, would poverty be eliminated by common ownership in a highly industrialised community such as ours, which depends, after all, so largely on foreign trade to maintain its standard of living? Supposing we had common ownership and in many or all of the countries to which we had to sell our goods there were tariff barriers and quotas raised against us, how could we prevent poverty affecting us? It seems to me that to say that common ownership would eliminate poverty is merely a generalisation founded on a pious hope, whereas private enterprise can point to concrete achievements of no insignificant order in that direction.
I should like, for a moment, to take the question of agriculture. In the last war this, our greatest industry, saved the country from famine. But what happened immediately afterwards? The sudden repeal of the Corn Production Acts and the subsequent collapse of the industry merely led to its being neglected by Government after Government until a state of poverty and distress existed throughout the country. The three partners in that industry, the landowner, the farmer and the agricultural worker—to my mind probably the most highly skilled man in the country—all suffered. Would common ownership have done anything to avoid that state of affairs? I doubt it. Now take the position to-day. Once more that great partnership came to the rescue of this country, and if we owed them a debt at the end of the last war, how much greater is our indebtedness to them to-day. But what do they want, what do they expect? I do not think they are looking for some would-be panacea as proposed by hon. Members opposite. I think what they want is definite assurances about the future. Security of tenure is absolutely essential. This alone can ensure the stability of the landowner, fair prices for the farmer and an equitable wage for the agricultural worker. By this means the landowner can fulfil his obligations to the farmers and tenants, obligations not enforced by law, but inescapable from true ownership; obligations which are very often conveniently forgotten by their critics but conscientiously honoured by all who possess and love the land. Now is surely the time for the Government to give them a definite promise about the future. Now is the time to bring forward proposals to create a prosperous and well-balanced agriculture, which is vital for the well-being of the country. The farming community has had its experience of control and restrictions during this war, and I think, as all these people are anxious to prove, that once given their place in the national economy they can by their own unhampered efforts prove their ever-present and ever-increasing value to the community.
I have given that illustration of one industry to show how impracticable, in my view, the proposal that is before us to-day proves to be. But surely the answer can be applied to all other industries. I do not think that anyone would


deny that the two countries which have reached the highest standard of well-being in the world are Great Britain and the United States of America. They are essentially private enterprise countries, in which State interference is much less in its scope and incidence than anywhere else. If this phenomenon is merely a coincidence it is a very remarkable coincidence. This country was built up in the past by the endeavours of individuals. There were the craftsmen who, by their ideas and by their hard work, founded the great industries of to-day; there were the mariners in their little ships who mapped out the trade routes all over the world and helped to found the British Empire; and a host of other little men, some honoured and some forgotten, who contributed in no small measure to the well-being of the country. I was not quite clear when the Mover of this Motion talked about the venturesome mariner—I think that was the phrase he used—how he would apply it to his argument. It seemed to me it supported the idea of private enterprise. However, may be I misunderstood him.
It is frequently pointed out that during the war Britain has done marvellously in the way of production despite all the controls and restrictions imposed upon her, and that therefore she should do equally well in peace-time under similar restrictions and controls. But it seems to me that that argument does not hold water. Our enormous and complicated business, commercial and industrial, was the creation of private enterprise, and the same applies equally to America which, with us, is both in proportion and in the aggregate the largest producer in the world. If I thought that common ownership would abolish war and poverty and would bring nearer peace and prosperity, I would be unreservedly in favour of it, and so would everybody else in this House, but before we take such a leap in the dark I feel we should need some sort of demonstration based upon facts and not only upon aspirations, that we should, in fact, land on terra firma and not fall, beyond all possibility of redeeming our error, if we have perpetrated one, into the intervening abyss. Has such demonstration been forthcoming in the past, and has such demonstration been given to us to-day? I am sure the House, if it considers the arguments valid, will support this Amendment, but I for my part remain unconvinced

and unconverted by the arguments put forward. I prefer to support a system which, in spite of its admitted inequalities and anomalies, does, in my view, give to the people of this country, who must always be our first concern, real hope and encouragement for the future.

Mr. Quintin Hogg: When one rises to congratulate an hon. friend on his first speech in this House the task is all the more difficult when he really is in an intimate sense an hon. friend. Compliments such as are generously given on these occasions come with more effect from the opposite benches, but I can assure my hon. Friend that his speech has been greatly appreciated by the House. My hon. friend is a person of considerable eminence in the world, and I am sure the House appreciated deeply the care which he had taken to prepare his arguments and his manifest sincerity and friendliness in addressing his fellow Members, and I am sure they will also join with me in wishing him well for the future and in the warm welcome which this House always accords.
I rise to oppose this Amendment on grounds somewhat different from those which were put forward by my hon. friend. I can assure the hon. Baronet the Member for Barnstaple (Sir R. Acland), or I could assure him if he were here, that I am in no mood to try to trip him up, as he put it, on matters of detail. I can assure my hon friend the Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) that although I do not follow his exposition of economics, which seemed to me to overlook the indebtedness of this country in matters of Lend-Lease and its import requirements from other lands, it is not because—

Mr. Maxton: In the matter of Lend-Lease I was taking as substantially true the statements made by the hon. Member's leaders showing that reverse Lend-Lease is squaring that.

Mr. Hogg: I am not disputing those facts at all, but it occurred to me that the argument he was pressing was ill-conceived. We are dependent for our food in war and peace upon imports from abroad. We do not produce in our own country either all our raw materials or all our food. That seems to be one of the cardinal facts of British economics and one to which my hon. Friend paid too little attention. If I do not follow him


in that argument, it is because I have something rather different to say to him and to the hon. Baronet. I think I should have said the same about this Amendment if it had been framed in somewhat different terms and from these benches rather than theirs. I could conceive an Amendment which said, "But humbly regret that His Majesty's Government do not appear to realise that only untramelled private enterprise, free from all Government restrictions, would solve the problems of the country." If such an Amendment had been proposed, I think I should have had exactly the same criticism to make of it as I propose to make of the hon. Baronet's Amendment.
The real issue before the House is not common ownership. The real issue is the severely practical issue, which faces us all, of our conduct in the coming Session. The real issue is: Here we are to-day with different views about different subjects, and what is the maximum amount of good we can do in this House, during this Session, with our common efforts? That is the issue which is before the House in this Amendment, and the question is whether, with our differing viewpoints, which we all hold sincerely, we are to pursue the line of national unity, the line of practical approach to definite and concrete problems, the line of a concrete programme to deal with concrete difficulties and of the full utilisation of our national resources; or whether we are to relax into recriminations with no common ground, whether we are to take the doctrinaire approach instead of the practical approach, and whether we are to fall into the error, which Field Marshal Smuts warned us of when he referred to slogans, catch-penny phrases, cheap and easy simplifications, rather than getting down to the essence of a problem and trying to deal with it without fixed preconceptions.
I have been greatly impressed by some of the things which the hon. Baronet has said. I agree with him that we live in times when new systems of society are coming to birth. I believe that it is an exciting thing to be an Englishman to-day; but I believe that that is the common heritage of young men of most persuasions. The hon. Baronet and the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) are fond of analysing the difficulties and failures of the years between the wars. It always seems to me that they miss the

real point of the difficulties of that period; which present nothing but variation on a single theme—that a nation which is not united can neither be strong, nor happy, nor great. The remedy for such lack of union does not consist in recrimination but in trying to examine our own minds in order to see how much we are prepared to sacrifice of our dearest shibboleths to meet the viewpoint of the other man. If the hon. Baronet had presented a case to show that there was no basis of unity in this House of Commons I should have been impressed with what he said when he suggested that we ought to get rid of the present Government and Parliament, but if this Debate has demonstrated one thing more clearly than another; it is that there is a basis of unity upon which we can helpfully proceed.

Sir R. Acland: As there was in the case of the Gadarene swine, all going in the wrong direction.

Mr. Hogg: If so, the hon. Baronet is in a distinguished minority; but I do not view the speeches we have heard from hon. Members in this Debate as speeches of Gadarene swine. We have heard the constructive speeches of my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham (Mr. Hamilton Kerr) and the Noble Lord the Member for South Dorset (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) as well as the striking and interesting speeches of the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell) and the right hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) and the speech on financial affairs from the hon. Member for Walsall (Sir G. Schuster). I have seen the Amendments on the Order Paper on food and full employment, that in the name of an hon. Friend, the Amendment on domestic issues standing in the name of the Labour Party and that standing in the name of the Hon. Member for St. Pancras about the Empire and other matters which have a direct bearing upon our current problems. It does not seem to me that those are at all fairly dealt with by the hon. Member in his simile calling us all Gadarene swine going in the wrong direction. I am glad that he makes at least this concession to my point of view that he agrees that those various Amendments and speeches are not inconsistent with one another and that they do add up to a national policy. It is a view which I put humbly before this House. It is not inconsistent with the idea of social justice


contained in the Labour Party's Amendment that we should try to develop backward areas of the Empire. On the contrary, one is a necessary corollary of the other and nobody saw that more clearly in his speech than the hon. Member for Seaham.
If there is this common basis, let us consider what are its practical implications. First of all we must admit that it seems useless to try to avoid controversy, but we must also frankly admit what sort of controversy we want and to what object it ought to be directed. The business of government is to govern, and to provide leadership in difficult and dangerous times, but government cannot be carried on without controversy, and leadership in doubtful and difficult problems cannot be given without arousing opposition. Government must always be by majority but let it not be by party controversy and by party majority. In this country at the present time there seems to be coming into being a central body of opinion which is very well and adequately represented on all sides of this House and it is to that central body of opinion that I should like the Government to appeal in a bolder and more forward stepping policy such as that which was indicated in the speech of my Noble Friend yesterday. It does not seem at all impossible. The argument which was addressed by the hon. Baronet and the hon. Member for Bridgeton seemed to be attacking a social system which has already largely passed away. What they were really attacking was very largely the theory of laisser faire.

Sir R. Acland: No. Quite wrong.

Mr. Hogg: I hope to be able to present arguments to show the hon. Baronet that he is mistaken about that point. At the moment we are emerging from a period when that doctrine formed the economic orthodoxy of the time. It was held that, whereas the Government could rightly intervene in diplomatic and military affairs and rightly anticipate events in those spheres, in social matters and economics such an attempt was doomed to failure and all that the Government could achieve there was to restrict the total volume of trade and therefore to reduce the total amount of prosperity. Surely, we all know better now. In his speech yesterday my Noble Friend referred

to the speech of the Prime Minister on the coal Debate; I should like to refer to another speech which he made on the rebuilding of the House of Commons. In that, he recalled that some people said we should wait till after the war, but he said that was impossible, and that we must now get a plan, in order to know what to build. That remark seemed to me to be sound doctrine, both for the hon. Baronet and for hon. Members on this side of the House as well. We must get a plan: planning is of course a theory—

Sir R. Acland: I am wondering whether the hon. Member is going to elaborate his argument to prove that I was attacking something which I was not attacking. I may be wrong and my hon. Friends may be wrong, but the hon. Member must not misrepresent us by saying that we were attacking laisser faire when what we were very deliberately attacking was the impossibility of imposing public planning over private ownership. We may be wrong, but perhaps the hon. Member will just tell us.

Mr. Hogg: I was just about to come to the hon. Baronet's argument in precisely the way he indicates. I was going to say that the theory of planning is unpopular with certain Members on this side of the House. They think that society is a living body and that planning is something which proceeds upon the false analogy of a machine or a building, to stretch or torture the living body of society by pulling it out where it is a little too short and pressing it in where it tends uncomfortably to bulge; but that is not what is meant by my hon. Friends and myself by planning. We mean that social and economic policy is as much a matter for intelligent anticipation and the conscious direction of government as diplomatic and military affairs. We believe that that is the true doctrine for the future. It may very well be that it will take us in some directions along the lines of public ownership and in other directions it will not. We must see how far it takes us, but we cannot wait to have a plan until the hon. Baronet gets a majority in this House of Commons. We have to have one now. We have got to do the best we can in the existing state of public opinion and the existing composition of the House of Commons. I believe it can be done and it can very easily be found—

Mr. Maxton: The hon. Member twits the hon. baronet with being some way away from having a majority in this House, but I would point out to the hon. Member that his party has had a majority here, practically a steady majority, even when Labour Governments were in office, and that never during the whole of that time have they had a plan. Where is the plan coming from now?

Mr. Hogg: I was about to try to help the hon. Member in that respect because I have something to say, even though he does not agree with me. The first thing to understand is that it is no good waiting for a plan until you get your ideal Parliamentary majority. When the war comes to an end we are not going to be given a breathing space to turn round and to wonder what we have to do next. Decisions which are being taken now are those which will influence our policy in two or three years' time. The plan which we have got to work out between ourselves now, with the best will in the world and with all our differences, is that which is going to be put into effect in two or three years' time. That is going to happen. Experience has taught us in this war that major decisions of policy take anything between six months and two years to put into effect. It follows with absolute certainty that what we are going to do or are not going to do in the coming session, with all our frailties and differences of opinion, is going to make all the difference whether we have an orderly transition from war to peace and whether we have a prosperous peace afterwards.
That means that the plan must be determined to some extent by the sincere convictions of hon. Gentlemen on all sides of the House. We cannot have one side forcing its will on the other. Nobody would be quicker to complain than hon. Members opposite if we tried to take that course. I am suggesting that the Debate has really shown a plan which will work and which can be put into effect. If we abandon the doctrine of laisser faire, as I think we are all prepared to do, the first thing we have to consider is whether we have a government machine capable of carrying out any plan at all. Our success in war during the past three years has been largely due on the political plane to changes which we have made in the

governmental machine. I do not enter now into the question of the multiplication of Ministries as that would be a too debatable ground. The main difference between our governmental machine now and that which we had in peace-time, is that in peace-time there was a committee of Departmental Ministers at the head of affairs with Departments underneath them, to discuss general policy, a committee of 25 at the Departmental level being the highest level to which we had reached. In wartime we have a War Cabinet of four, five or six members, with a permanent staff responsible not to the Department from which they were originally drawn but planning at the level of the War Cabinet on matters of general policy. We require a similar staff and a similar political organisation if this House is to play its full part in time of peace. That is the first thing we can probably all do, or at any rate a sufficient number of us can do from all sides of the House to make quite sure it really happens. We can declare that to be our policy.
The second thing we can look at is the Budget. The Budget has developed from the days of laisser faire when it was considered that a high Budget was a great mark of national misfortune to the present time when the Budget has become a great engine of social policy. I was reading the other day a pamphlet by Mr. Norman Crump, the City Editor of a well-known Conservative newspaper, not, as a matter of fact, particularly well marked for its progressive leanings. He said he viewed without any apprehension a normal postwar Budget of from £1,500,000,000 to £2,000,000,000. My own view is that is a somewhat modest estimate. I should have thought we could probably have agreed on at least £2,000,000,000 as a normal peace-time Budget and one which would rise if we succeeded in maintaining the birth rate and in maintaining the national income. If that is so, and if we are committed on all sides of the House to a Budget of that size, the problem of planning really presents no difficulty. All the arguments which were presented by the hon. Member for Bridgeton really related to a time when to its great disaster and misfortune and to the great misfortune of the country elderly Members on both sides of the House accepted the presuppositions of laisser faire and the low national Budget that that implied.


Now that we are committed to a totally different policy there is no reason for a long time why we should part company and disagree.
The Budget is of course cardinal, but the second point on which agreement may be reached relates to consumption. Economists, not Socialist economists but orthodox economists have been for quite a long period of time preaching that in order to iron out the differences between boom and slump, slump and boom a regular and expanding level of planned consumption is one of the essential preliminaries. With a Budget of £2,000,000,000 that can be done. It can be done by Government expenditure on education, by, as my Noble Friend suggested, a policy of minimum wages, by social security payments, by other devices which on the former theory of budgetting were quite inadmissible. There is really no reason why this House of Commons should differ on the general lines of such a policy. I believe that from all sides of the House in this Debate on the Address there has been a desire not to criticise the Government for timidity but to assure the Government of a greater and wider measure of support if they show themselves a little more bold.
Consumption would be useless unless it were coupled with a policy of the re-equipment of industry. Where did that suggestion come from first? It came from the striking speech of the hon. Member for Seaham. I can believe that no one but the most doctrinaire Socialist would now abject to tax relief for money which was genuinely ploughed back into industry to re-equip industry and to improve our productivity. I can believe that no one but the most died-in-the-wool individualist would object to schemes for Government spending in the same direction were that proved the most practicable means.
We are faced with the problem posed by the hon. Member for Bridgeton. He spoke of the shipyards, but of course the shipyards are only a special example of the problem which faces our industry as a whole. All over the world there have been vast new centres of industrial production. After the war we will be faced with the possibility of competition when the first drive for consumption goods has been exhausted. The great industrial centres of the world will compete again, and what possible solution can be found to that problem

by common ownership? The fact that the State rather than some individuals owns shipyards here does not make them compete any less with the shipyards of America. The problem is essentially the same whether the Socialist or the Capitalist system is assumed. The problem is to create new markets so that all the resources of the world can be usefully harnessed to something which will do good instead of harm to mankind.
There is no reason at all why at this stage of the Debate we should part company. On the contrary, we can go forward together. When I think of the problems we are really likely to be faced with in the next two or three years I feel that very strongly. Europe is devastated. As the Germans go back they break everything which is capable of being broken—roads, bridges, railways, public buildings, water supply, and they loot or steal the food. The cattle population of Europe will not be at its normal level for another 15 years. Fields have been unfertilised, people dissipated and murdered. If we deal only with material destruction, we deal only with the smallest part of what has been done. Who can measure what time it will take to restore the human damage this war has brought about? In the face of that, who can try to divide the one really united people in Western Europe, the one people who provide some bridge between the extreme capitalism of the United States and the extreme collectivism of Soviet Russia. To do such a thing would be to sabotage the whole rehabilitation and re-construction of Europe.
We shall have our own problems, demobilisation, houses, and education among them. Are we to quarrel over these or achieve something together? Can we hope to succeed if we are a divided people approaching these problems with slogans and half truths like private enterprise and common ownership upon our lips instead of facing in a united and practical way a great problem which will be serious enough without these childish school boy Debates, can we hope to succeed in an atmosphere of recrimination, not unity? We are faced with the problem of grave changes, and we must go forward together or be faced with disaster and disaster of the worst possible kind. I cannot see that any party issues are raised by these things. The hon. Member for Seaham said that we must—[Interruption.]—I have been trying to explain. I


was hoping that the hon. Baronet would not disagree with social security, with education, the development of backward countries, the re-equipment of our industry, with the restoration of order and prosperity and happiness in devastated Europe. If he does disagree with these, he must form part of the extremist minority about which I spoke at the beginning of my speech.

Sir R. Acland: Does the hon. Member mean that we must disagree with these things if we disagree with his way of trying to get them? If so, does he propose we should be denied the right of expressing our disagreement from him?

Mr. Hogg: The hon. Baronet has done so for about three quarters of an hour. He can do so again. I am only telling him that he is wrong.
There is only one other thing I want to say. I do so in deep humility and with a real consciousness of my own shortcomings. Our problems are very hard ones, but there are no problems with which the great qualities of the human spirit cannot deal, the human qualities which we have learned on the battlefields of this war—idealism, confidence and comradeship. These are the things which saved us in our most difficult hour. We shall need every bit of idealism, confidence and comradeship in the years following the war. We shall not get them unless we are prepared to make concessions to the opinions of others. I hesitate in this place to call these qualities by the names by which they should be known. I said idealism, I said confidence and I said comradeship would lead us through. I meant faith, I meant hope, I meant charity, and I say this in great humility to some hon. Gentlemen opposite whose idealism and whose confidence and whose sincerity I do not dispute:
the greatest of these is charity"—
and—
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels … though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned"—
as so many of our most beloved friends have done—
.… and have not charity it profiteth me nothing.… Charity … endureth all things and is kind is not easily provoked, is not puffed up.
This is the real answer to the riddle of statesmanship which was posed by my

hon. Friend, and it is the only answer. If we can learn it we can go forward with hope. If we do not learn it it seems to me that I see in the future nothing but misery, desolation, chaos, cruelty and despair, for with the death of charity die hope and faith without which life
… is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: I am quite sure that the House has listened with great attention and deep feeling to the speech we have just listened to from the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg). If I do not follow him it will be because I have not really risen to make a speech to-day on this great subject. I have not done so because whereas in ordinary times, when we were working to a time-table, not only someone from this bench, but numbers of my hon. Friends behind me would have wished to take part in this Debate, and would have endeavoured to do justice to the magnitude of the subject and the obviously very sincere speech which was made by the hon. Baronet the Member for Barnstaple (Sir R. Acland), who moved this Amendment. We have not done that because we do not wish to take up any substantial part of the very limited time which the promoters of this Amendment have at their disposal in order to represent their views.
I rise at the request of those for whom I speak not to make a speech but to make a very short statement as to our position with regard to this Amendment. I am only repeating a commonplace in saying that we are a Socialist Party, and our views on the principles of Socialism are well known. We have had many opportunities of speaking with regard to them on previous occasions. We shall no doubt have many future occasions, and we shall not only advocate theoretical views, but we shall hope to give reasons for their being put into definite immediate practice in a very large number of instances. Though I would not commit myself to all that the hon. Baronet said—I think that anyone who did that would perhaps be asking for trouble—I will say that with a great deal of what he said we find ourselves in agreement. We recognise that the system of private enterprise, much as it may have done for the country in the past, has largely given place to monopoly, and that private monopoly


cannot be allowed to take control in so far as it conflicts with the public weal
I say that because we had a very interesting maiden speech just now from the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. L. Berry), which we listened to with great attention, as we always do to a maiden speech, and in the hope that we may hear the Member speak again at some future time. He said that Members of this House, or some of them, were in favour of a regimented society. I must say that is not my view. The vote that will be taken at the end of the speech of the Postmaster-General, who, I understand, is to reply, is not on the merits of Socialism. That is made perfectly clear by the hon. Baronet who moved the Amendment. He said specifically and definitely that this Amendment is intended as a Vote of Censure on the Government. That being so, I and my hon. Friends for whom I speak cannot go into the Lobby in support of that Amendment.
My party entered the Coalition for a definite purpose. We recognised that if this war was going to be prosecuted with the full vigour and determination which the people of this country as a whole demanded, it must be by a united Government and the major parties in this House. We recognise that the Coalition holds together in matters other than the war by compromise, and we deplore, in so far as it exists, the attitude of any section of this House which seeks to put a veto on proposals for prosecuting the war and carrying the war to a successful conclusion and to laying the foundations for a really stable society in the future. We have never expected that this Government would commit themselves whole-heartedly to a Socialist policy, and we certainly do not propose to break them up because they have not expressed these views. The hon. Baronet will recognise that the Vote of Censure if carried would involve the break-up of the Coalition, and because, from the start, we have desired that this Coalition should remain in order to carry the war to a successful conclusion, we cannot give our support to his Amendment.

The Postmaster - General (Captain Crookshank): Time is getting on under the arrangement under which we are working, and I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the statement

which he has just made explaining the position of those for whom he speaks and bringing the House back once again to what is involved in this Amendment. During the Debate on the Address, as we very well know, there are two kinds of Amendment. There is the Amendment which is designed very often by the supporters of the Government to elicit some statement about something which is implicit in the King's Speech, but has not been particularly referred to in other speeches, and we have had during the Debate on the Address a number of such Amendments discussed. For example, no one thought that there were no links of communication between ourselves and the Commonwealth and the Dominions, but a day's Debate was usefully spent in clearing that topic up. An important Debate took place on the world food position, and herring in this country. No one supposed that that matter was not thought of by anyone in Government circles, but the King's Speech cannot contain every subject under the sun. That is one kind of Amendment on which we have spent considerable time during the Debate since the Speech was made. There is the other kind of Amendment, and it is that Amendment with which we are concerned today, the Amendment which in normal times is put down on the Order Paper by the official Opposition to the Government, the Amendment where the Opposition of the day exposes the wares that it has in its shop on offer and, indeed, an Amendment which is couched in such terms that if the original Speech had contained them the Opposition's job would be at an end, because it would have meant that the Government had swallowed all the policies of those to whom they are opposed.
This Amendment, coming from the Coalition of the hon. Baronet's group and the Independent Labour Party, has had, judging from the Order Paper, quite a career, because, first of all, two Amendments appeared. The hon. Baronet devoted himself in the first version to calling attention to the great productive resources of this country held in a few hands and the Independent Labour Party had, as usual, a very much longer Amendment, because they are always good enough to expose what they have in mind in great detail. They referred to the great financial power which is privately owned, and they wish that and all the natural resources to be taken over.


Productive resources from the Baronet, natural resources and financial power from the Independent Labour Party. I do not know whether there is any appreciable difference in all those things, but the proposition with which we are faced, if you are going to discuss the Amendment at all—which no one has done up to now—is for the consideration of every hon. Member wherever he sits in the House and he has got to answer for himself. He has got to decide, first of all, whether the Amendment is absolutely sound. Is it one that he can entirely accept for what it says? Secondly, he has got to decide, even if it is sound, shall he vote for it at all costs regardless of the consequences to the nation if it is accepted? That is the point.
As part of the background in considering that problem on the first issue, the right hon. Gentleman, of course, is quite right, as he reminds us, that the Labour Party in this country does believe in common ownership. Many of those who sit on these benches are Socialists. I do not propose to explain what the word means, because it is not for me to say, but if they had been here, I would have had on my right the Prime Minister, who is a life-long opponent of Socialism, and I would have had on my left the Deputy Prime Minister, who is a life-long supporter of it. They have come together, and their parties have come together and been supported by the Liberal Parties in this House in order to do what is possible to win the war, and the Debate, therefore, at this late stage, is not one in which I am going to argue between Socialism and private enterprise at all. I am merely going to ask the House to make up its mind about this Amendment. I could debate this issue, but at the moment I think it would be a little untimely and certainly, for this purpose, unnecessary. We have had a very interesting Debate. I must congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. L. Berry) on his maiden speech. He came through the ordeal very well. Unfortunately, not many hon. Members were here at the time, but he came through with flying colours, and we look forward to hearing him on future occasions. Hon. Members for agricultural constituencies will be glad to know that he made some reference to that problem.
Regarding this Amendment, may I ask hon. Members to consider for one minute what the proposition in it is? The proposition is that we, the Government, the great bulk of the Members of this House who support the Government, do not realise that private ownership of all substantial resources must now, right now—presumably this eighth day of December, 1943, onwards—be supplanted by common ownership. What for? If future wars and poverty are to be eliminated and human brotherhood more nearly approached then we must have common ownership. That may be all right as far as it goes about future wars, but, unfortunately, we are engaged in a war now, and it is this war we have got to deal with. The hon. Members of the Independent Labour Party care for none of these things. It is well known that they are opposed to this war in every way. They may be, but the nation, as represented by the great majority in this House, finding itself in the war, is trying to do its best to win the war and finds it very hard to accept the thesis of the hon. Baronet in his opening sentence that what this Amendment means is that we want a new Government and a new House of Commons. There is very little evidence that the nation as a whole thinks that to do that to-day would help the war effort.
Hon. Members have opened up most interesting fields, not the least of which was the political Darwinism of the hon. Baronet and the description of the dead-end fish. His speech, I am sure, will be read with great interest, as one gathers more from reading than one can from hearing, but I must admit that some parts of it were very confusing, at any rate to my poor intelligence. It is proposed that we should turn out the Government and have a new Parliament and put ourselves to all the colossal change that would be involved rather than continue with the present administration, which has not done too badly on the road which it has been forced to take. The proposition that common ownership would eliminate future wars is one which, judging by the experience of the immediate past, is none too easy to accept, because, after all, in recent times the only great country in Europe that went all out for common ownership was our Russian Ally, and the fact that they did so has certainly not prevented the German beast when he ran amok going for the Russian throat just as much as he


went for the democratic throats of Norway, Holland and every other country among the United Nations he has ravaged.
The mere fact that you had common ownership did not prevent this war, and it is, therefore, perhaps a little speculative to assert very positively that it will avoid future wars. I suggest to hon. Gentlemen of the Labour Party who believe in common ownership as such and who might feel inclined to support this Amendment that it is not a proposition which is completely watertight as it stands and that it would be, perhaps, just as well for them not to accept it. But they may say, "Yes, we believe so much in this common ownership"—

Mr. Tinker: I hope the right hon. and gallant Gentleman will not taunt us with that—that we believe in common ownership.

Captain Crookshank: I do not wish to taunt anyone about common ownership; I am trying to help the hon. Members. I have not said anything derogatory at all. I put it to them that this Amendment as it stands is not necessarily one which they would whole-heartedly support; but there is the greater issue involved of demanding a vote of confidence in the Government. That is the greater issue. I do not think that when it comes to that issue hon. Members who believe in the common ownership principle need have any fears about looking behind the actual text of this Amendment at its authors. Members of the Independent Labour Party make absolutely clear their attitude about the war. It would be absolutely quixotic for us to entrust them with the conduct of it; certainly any such change would disturb the unity of the nation. It would certainly encourage our enemies, and it would certainly jeopardise the victory which we think we see approaching nearer every day. That is the simple issue.
I hope that all Members who were not in the House at the time will give themselves the pleasure of reading the speech of the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg). He has made to-day one of the most striking orations ever made in this long Parliament, dating back now over so many years. He put so clearly the grounds upon which those of different parties in this House could come together. He summed up so well so much of what

has already been spoken in the Debate that I would not attempt to cover the ground again, although it had been my intention to do so. While I am not necessarily accepting every word he said, it was a speech which commands attention. We have not argued the private enterprise and Socialism issue. We have had it from time to time in the past, and no doubt we shall have it again, but we have not discussed it at all to-day. The right hon. Gentleman opposite said that his friends reserved the right on future occasions, quite rightly, to raise and argue that issue. I, too, reserve the right to do so. The majority in this House, at present, as it happens, take the contrary view on that issue, and on the appropriate occasion it can be discussed. Now we have to concentrate on the question of what we shall do about this Amendment.
The Government, as is clearly known to everyone, came together to try to devise every possible plan and scheme to defeat the enemy. What is quite clear is that success in war depends upon various things. It depends upon the gallantry of all ranks in the Services, it depends on the hard, continuous labour of workers in the various fields of production, and it depends on the morale of all the people. That gallantry, that labour and that morale require commanders, administrators and leaders. The whole direction of the war is what is in issue on this Amendment, because, if the hon. Gentleman and his friend succeed in turning out the Government, the present Prime Minister presumably yields place to the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) or the hon. Baronet, whichever it may be. Whether that will encourage the alliance, whether it will end the war quickly, I beg leave to doubt. But, if the fundamental reason for opposing the Government were that we had conducted things so badly during the last 12 months, I would ask the House to remember the North African campaign, the clearing of the Mediterranean, the landings in Sicily and Italy, the collapse of Mussolini's régime, the growing success of the anti-U-boat campaign, the increasing attacks on the enemy's war production, Quebec, Teheran and the increasingly closer ties which have been forged between ourselves, Russia, the United States and all the United Nations. I claim that looking at the picture as a whole there is no reason why this House should


fail to show its confidence in the present Administration. Ignore the Amendment. It is not so much the Amendment which is at issue as what lies behind it. It has already been stated that this Division, if it takes place, is to be one of confidence in the Government. It is upon the record of the Government in the 12 months since His Majesty last addressed Parliament that I ask with the utmost confidence for support for this Government.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Hon. Members: Divide.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Milner): I understood that Mr. Speaker expressed the hope that the whole House would co-operate, so that this Amendment could, if desired, be divided upon by the time which he mentioned.

Mr. Maxton: There are five minutes to go.

Mr. Stephen: I do not intend to keep the House very long, but I think that those of us who support the Amendment are entitled to say a word. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman taunted us with the fact that there had been two Amendments on the Paper, and that we had come together and put down a single Amendment. The hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment and the I.L.P. are not responsible for that. We had to have a joint Amendment in order to get an opportunity of challenging confidence in the Government. It is in accordance with the traditional practice of this House that Members who have no confidence in the Government should have an opportunity on the King's Speech of putting down an Amendment, and having it debated and divided upon. It is because we had so much difficulty that we have reached the present agreement.
Like other hon. Members, I shall welcome future interventions by the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. L. Berry). I am not without hopes of him. I think he came to-day with his mind very much made up from what he had heard and read, but possibly experience in this House will teach him that a lot of things which he said to-day are not really worthy of consideration, and before he is much older he may come to the conclusion that only under the communal system of the means of life shall we be able to have a popu-

lation which is not regimented and which has a full opportunity for the development of personality. The hon. Member said a lot of interesting things, but, if I may say so without being offensive, he was very platitudinous. He talked about the condition of Europe after the war, but there is one thing which is pressing upon this country at the present time. That is the condition of the old people. That will be the test of how much his eloquent sentences mean. What is he going to do in the present Session to see that the old people are properly treated? I agree with him in his quotation from the Psalm of Love. Yes, Love is the greatest of all things. But I would remind him of something else. There was a young man who had lived a very virtuous life, who had kept all the Commandments, who was very anxious to win eternal life. But there was one thing he lacked. He was not prepared for the great test, to sell all he had and follow the Master. So he went away sorrowful. [Interruption.] The hon. Member may disagree with my exegesis; possibly the young man also disagreed with the words that the Master said to him.
I want to say a word about the answer which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman gave. He said that the issue is one of confidence in the Government. I agree. Then he asked, But what would be the position if the House declared its lack of confidence in the present Government? Would that mean that we would have to leave it to the Independent Labour party? Some Members seem to have a certain amount of misgiving on that point. I do not think that this Government is going to win the war, because winning the war, to my mind, involves also winning the peace. Let me say to hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway, if you are going to win the war, you have to make the world safe for democracy. I wonder whether the Government have any intention of making the world safe for democracy. I do not see any such intention in the way they have been acting over Italy. I do not see it in the way they have treated Victor Emmanuel and Badoglio, and in their general attitude. They are not making the world safe for democracy; they are carrying on the war on the principle of the restoration of monarchy in Europe. If the Independent Labour party were entrusted with power in this


country, we would carry on the Government in such a way as to make the country safe for the working-class people. The present Government have no principle but one in the way they have conducted the affairs of the country. They have tried to run the country on the basis of, What is the least that the working people will take to maintain social unity? They say that they are to be trusted as the Government which will win the war for you. Yet to-day there is need for the production of coal in very much greater amount; the factories are threatened with rationing, with going short of coal; and the Government will not take the necessary steps about the coal industry. I believe that their attitude in that respect is symbolic of the whole conduct of the Government and I am confident that by the overthrowing of the Government the political atmosphere of this country would be cleansed and purified and a Government would take their place that would carry on free from all contradictions and lack of principle of the present Administration. The country has no hope of justice for the working classes in the years to come from the people who are responsible for carrying on the Government to-day.

Mr. Silverman: rose—

Hon. Members: Divide.

Mr. Silverman: I apologise for not co-operating in the suggestion that was made by you, Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of the Debate, though I hope not to delay the programme for more than a minute or two. I rise because I intend to vote for the Amendment, and I do not think, having regard to the way in which the matter has been put from the Government Front Bench, that I ought to give a silent vote. If I thought the result of carrying this Amendment would be to put the members of the Independent Labour Party on to the Government Front Bench, I would not vote far it. I have not, since the beginning of the war, voted for any Amendment moved by the Independent Labour Party, not because I have disagreed on their Socialist outlook on strictly domestic issues, but because I believe they have been completely unrealistic and have not faced the facts in their attitude to the war. I believe the Government could not have done other than they did on 3rd September, 1939, and unless we pursue the war to a victorious conclusion there will

be no hope of having a Socialist world. I have been unable to agree with the actions they have taken in this House, but what we are dealing with to-day is the kind of world that we are to make when victory has been won.
I do not believe that anyone wants to see a world war again. We shall not be able to avoid world war again unless we abolish poverty, and we shall not be able to abolish poverty unless we secure the common ownership of the matters referred to in the Amendment. The Prime Minister and the King's Gracious Speech are right in postulating that the minimum requirements in the new world will be food, employment and homes, but I would add, we shall not be able to get them except by a fundamental reconstruction of society along the lines indicated by the hon. Baronet who moved the Amendment. I believe in the continued alliance after war not merely with the United States of America but with Soviet Russia. I do not think that we shall be able to maintain common understanding on the basis of the economics of plenty in one country and the economics of scarcity in the rest of the world. Therefore, unless we are to betray our people at the end of this war, as we undoubtedly betrayed them at the end of the last war, then, it is the business of all of us to accept our responsibilities and to see to it that our plans are made now for a radical and fundamental reconstruction of our economic, social and political ways of living.
When I am told that this party is in the Government and that although we agree on these things, agree with the Amendment, and with the speech that the hon. Baronet made, still we must not vote for it because that would be a vote of censure on the Government, I appeal to hon. Friends on these benches to draw a distinction. Certainly we went into the Government and, if we go on these terms, will remain in it in order to prosecute the war to a successful conclusion and to victory but we must retain, unless we are to give the lie to our deepest beliefs, our responsibilities for all time and our freedom of action on these domestic issues and on these social and economic problems. I have no confidence at all, any more than has my right hon. Friend in front of me, that this Government with its present vision, with its refusal to deal with any question of reconstruction which involves differences of principle, can estab-


lish now the lines upon which a new and a happier world can be built. Therefore, I shall vote for the Amendment not because I want to censure the Government in their prosecution of the war, but because I have no confidence whatever that they have the capacity or the will to build the

Division No. 2.
AYES.



Bevan, A. (Ebbw Vale)
Hardle, Agnes
Stephen, C.


Buchanan, G.
McGhee, H. G.
Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)


Cove, W. G.
Salter, Dr. A. (Bermondsey, W.)



Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
Silverman, S. S.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:—




Sir R. Acland and Mr. Maxton.




NOES.


Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.
Duncan, Capt. J. A. L. (kens'gt'n, N.)
James, Wing-Com. A. (Well'borough)


Adamson, W. M. (Cannock)
Dunn, E.
James, Admiral Sir W. (Perts'th, N.)


Agnew, Comdr. P. G.
Eccles, D. M.
Jeffreys, Gen. Sir G. D.


Albery, Sir Irving
Ede, J. C.
Jewson, P. W.


Apsley, Lady
Edmondson, Major Sir J.
John, W.


Aske, Sir R. W.
Elliot, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. W. E.
Jones, L. (Swansea, W.)


Astor, Viscountess (Plymouth, Sutton)
Emmott, C. E. G. C.
Jowitt, Rt. Hon. Sir W. A.


Balfour, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. H.
Emrys-Evans, P. V.
Joynson-Hicks, Lt.-Comdr. Hon. L. W.


Baxter, A. Beverley
Entwistle, Sir C. F.
Keeling, E. H.


Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P.
Erskine-Hill, A. G.
Keir, Mrs. Cazalet


Beattie, F. (Cathcart)
Etherton, Ralph
Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)


Beaumont, Hubert (Batley)
Evans, Colonel A. (Cardiff, S.)
Kerr, Sir John Graham (Scottish U's)


Beaumont, Major Hn. R. E. B. (P't'sh)
Fermoy, Lord
Kimball Maj. L.


Beech, F. W.
Fildes, Sir H.
Lamb, Sir J. Q.


Beechman, N. A.
Fox, Flight-Lieut. Sir G. W. G.
Leach, W.


Beit, Sir A. L.
Frankel, D.
Leighton, Major B. E. P.


Bennett, Sir P. F. B. (Edgbaston)
Furness, Major S. N.
Lennox-Boyd, A. T. L.


Benson, G.
Galbraith, Comdr. T. D.
Levy, T.


Berry, Hon. G. L. (Buckingham)
Gammans, Capt. L. D.
Lewis, D.


Bevin, Rt. Hon. E. (Wandsworth, C.)
Garro Jones, G. M.
Lindsay, K. M.


Boles, Lt.-Col. D. C.
Gates, Major E. E.
Linstead, H. N.


Boothby, R. J. G.
George, Maj. Rt. Hon. G. Lloyd (P'b'ke)
Lipson, D. L.


Bower, Norman (Harrow)
Gibson, Sir C. G.
Lloyd, Major E. G. R. (Renfrew, E.)


Bower, Comdr. R. T. (Cleveland)
Gledhill, G.
Loftus, P. C.


Brass, Capt. Sir W.
Graham, Captain A. C. (Wirral)
Lucas, Major Sir J. M.


Brisoee, Capt. R. G.
Grant-Ferris, Wing-Commander R.
Lyle, Sir C. E. Leonard


Broad, F. A.
Green, W. H. (Deptford)
Mabane, W.


Brooke, H. (Lewisham)
Greene, W. P. C. (Worcester)
MacAndrew, Colonel Sir C. G.


Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)
Greenwell, Colonel T. G.
McCorquodale, Malcolm S.


Brown, Rt. Hon. E. (Leith)
Gretton, J. F.
McEwen, Capt. J. H. F.


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)
Gridley, Sir A. B.
McKie, J. H.


Bull, B. B.
Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)
Magnay, T.


Bullock, Capt. M.
Grimston, Hon. J. (St. Albans)
Maitland, Sir A.


Burden, T. W.
Grimston, R. V. (Westbury)
Makins, Brig.-Gen. Sir E.


Butcher, H. W.
Groves, T. E.
Mander, G. le M.


Cadegan, Major Sir E.
Gunston, Major Sir D. W.
Manningham-Buller, Major R. E.


Campbell, Sir E. T. (Bromley)
Hall, W. G. (Colne Valley)
Marlowe, Lt.-Col. A.


Campbell, Dermot (Antrim)
Hambro, Capt. A. V.
Mathers, G.


Carver, Colonel W. H.
Hannah, I. C.
Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.


Cary, R. A.
Hannon, Sir P. J. H.
Mellor, Sir J. S. P.


Chapman, Sir S. (Edinburgh, S.)
Harris, Rt. Hon. Sir P. A.
Mills, Sir F. (Leyton, E.)


Clarry, Sir Reginald
Henderson, J. (Ardwick)
Mitchell, Colonel H. P.


Cobb, Captain E. C.
Henderson, J. J. Craik (Leeds, N. E.)
Molson, A. H. E.


Colegate, W. A.
Henderson, T. (Tradeston)
Montague, F.


Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)
Hepburn, Major P. G. T. Buchan
Morris-Jones, Sir Henry


Critchley, A.
Hicks, E. G.
Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Universities)


Crooke, Sir J. Smedley
Higgs, W. F.
Morrison, Major J. G. (Salisbury)


Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Naylor, T. E.


Crowder, Capt. J. F. E.
Hogg, Hon. Q. McG.
Neven-Spence, Major B. H. H.


Culverwell, C. T.
Holdsworth, H.
Nicholson, G. (Farnham)


Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Holmes, J. S.
Nield, Lt.-Col. B. E.


Davidson, Viscountess (H'm'l H'mst'd)
Hopkinson, A.
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir H.


Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovll)
Hore-Belisha, Rt. Hon. L.
Paling, W.


Do Chair, Capt. S. S.
Horsbrugh, Florence
Peters, Dr. S. J.


De la Bère. R.
Howitt, Dr. A. B.
Pethick-Lawrence, Rt. Hon. F. W.


Denville, Alfred
Hudson, Sir A. (Hackney, N.)
Peto, Major B. A. J.


Doland, G. F.
Hulbert, Wing Commander N. J.
Pickthorn, K. W. M.


Donner, Squadron-Leader P. W.
Hume, Sir G. H.
Plugge, Capt. L. F.


Douglas, F. C. R.
Hunter, T.
Ponsonby, Col. C. E.


Drewe, C.
Hurd, Sir P. A.
Price, M. P.


Duckworth, Arthur (Shrewsbury)
Hutchinson, G. C. (Ilford)
Procter, Major H. A.


Dugdale, Major T. L. (Richmond)
Hutchison, Lt.-Com. G. I. C. (E'burgh)
Quibell, D. J. K.

kind of world that we on these benches want and that would prevent war and poverty in the future.

Question put, "That those words be there added."

The House divided: Ayes, 10; Noes, 246.

Raikes, Flight-Lieut. H. V. A. M.
Smith, E. P. (Ashford)
Turton, R. H.


Rankin, Sir R.
Smith, T. (Normanton)
Walker, J.


Rathbone, Eleanor
Snadden, W. McN.
Ward, Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)


Reid, Rt. Hon. J. S. C. (Hillhead)
Southby, Comdr. Sir A. R. J.
Wardlaw-Milne, Sir J. S.


Reid, W. Allan (Derby)
Spearman, A. C. M.
Waterhouse, Capt. C.


Robertson, D. (Streatham)
Stourton, Major Hon. J. J.
Watkins, F. C.


Ross Taylor, W.
Strickland, Capt. W. F.
Watson, W. McL.


Rothschild, J. A. de
Stuart, Lord C. Crichton (Northwich)
Watt, Lt.-Col. G. S. H. (Richmond)


Russell, Sir A. (Tynemouth)
Studholme, Captain H. C.
Wedderburn, H. J. S.


Salt, E. W.
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.
Westwood, Rt. Hon. J.


Sanderson, Sir F. B.
Suirdale, Viscount
White, Sir Dymoke (Fareham)


Sandys, E. D.
Summers, G. S.
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W. (Blaydon)


Savory, Professor D. L.
Sykes, Maj.-Gen. Rt. Hon. Sir F. H.
Willink, H. U.


Schuster, Sir G. E.
Tate, Mavis C.
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Scott, Donald (Wansbeck)
Taylor, Major C. S. (Eastbourne)
Woodburn, A.


Selley, H. R.
Thomson, Sir J. D. W.
Wright, Mrs. Beatrice F. (Bodmin)


Shaw, Capt. W. T. (Forfar)
Thornton-Kemsley, Lt.-Col. C. N.
York, Major C.


Shephard, S.
Tinker, J. J.



Shepperson, Sir E. W.
Tomlinson, G.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:—


Silkin, L.
Touche, G. C.
Mr. Boulton and Mr. Pym.


Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir W. D.
Tufnell, Lieut.-Comdr. R. L.

Main Question again proposed.

LOCATION OF INDUSTRY

Sir Alexander Russell: I beg to move, at the end of the Question, to add:
But humbly regret that there is no mention of any national policy for a better location of industry, designed to prevent so far as possible a recurrence of the unemployment which prevailed in the period between the two wars, in areas mainly dependent on the heavy industries.
This Amendment would have been moved by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Newcastle (Sir C. Headlam). Unfortunately, through illness he is absent from the House, and, in undertaking the task, I am sure the House will join with me in expressing the hope that he may have a speedy recovery. It is a remarkable thing that, though we are waging the greatest war in history and have been warned that the grimmest stage may be yet to come, throughout the long Debate on the Gracious Speech little more than passing references have been made to the conduct of the war. The special circumstances governing the Debate perhaps account for that, but in the country during the past month or two there has been a significant development.

Mr. Donald Scott: I beg to second the Amendment.
I am sure the House will join with me in expressing our sympathy with our hon. Friend and will regret very much that he feels unable to carry on. In seconding the Amendment, I feel that the House will forgive me if I confine my remarks to one particular district, that in which I was born and bred and in which my constituency lies, namely the North East coast of England. I do that in no parochial

spirit but rather because I would sooner speak of a district which I know, and I feel too that many of my arguments will apply with equal force to certain other districts. We are now in the fifth year of the war, and be our final victory far or near the minds of thinking people all over the country—and people are thinking to-day—are turning to the years that lie ahead and the problems which may confront us. The time is approaching when this Parliament is going to be judged, not by its fine phrases, its intentions, or its promises, but rather by its ability to translate those phrases, intentions and promises into legislation. Millions of our people are looking forward to greater social security, to better health services, to homes instead of mere houses, and to a wider and better educational system. Millions of our people are not fools, and they realise that these much-longed-for and much desired improvements in our social system must depend upon the ability of this country to give full employment. It is scarcely to be wondered at that districts like the North East coast and others, which but a short time ago saw and felt the grim horror of mass regional unemployment, should be seriously concerned and that those districts should be asking what steps the Government are going to take so to arrange the location of industry that we in the North East and other similarly placed districts shall have a second line of defence to our main bastion, the heavy industries, should they once again fall on evil days. What steps, they ask, are the Government prepared to take in order to prevent those districts becoming once again special areas, "special" only in that they excited the pity of mankind and the charity of the State? And those


people who are asking that question, as they are asking it in the Press and through Members of all parties, have a right to some hope and some reply.
This problem of fostering light alternative industries in these districts would seem to be capable of approach in three different ways: first of all, by the widest survey and the widest possible planning on the part of the Government, and, secondly, there is a necessity for a changed outlook on the part of the people in those districts. We have been justifiably proud for generations of our industrial history, the coal we have mined, the great ships of peace and war that we have sent out of the slipways to sail the seven seas. It may be that our pride made us a little narrow-minded, perhaps a little superior, and made us say sometimes, "We who kept half the coal fires of Europe going, who launched the 'Mauritania,' who built the Sydney Bridge, what have we to do with light industries?" It may be too that we developed too much local patriotism, which is so often a euphemism for parochialism. Be that as it may, we on the North East coast somehow seemed not to have advanced with the times. We who led the world at one time in transport, literally missed the bus, and it is a most significant fact that the region that gave birth to the steam turbine, which heard the first whistle of the first locomotive in the world did not produce before this war one aeroplane, one motor car, one motor cycle and precious few ordinary bicycles. I submit that we have to get away from that heavy-mindedness. We have to develop a new spirit of enterprise and adventure or rather recapture the old one. To do that it is going to take not only Government co-operation but the good will of the capitalists, the industrialists and the trade unionists in the district.
My third approach is this: If we are to foster these new light industries, we have to look first to the State, then to ourselves, or rather to the industrialists and others concerned, and finally to our own Local Authorities, not necessarily by asking them to give up their identity, but to ask them to act as one body, not as a small body trying to stake out local claims, but one great body speaking with one great voice. We have in the North-East, and indeed in other areas similarly situated, another

industry which has been, though in the background, a very good friend and a very good customer and a very loyal partner of the towns in prosperity and in adversity. I refer, of course, to agriculture, but I sometimes wonder if there has been a sufficient link between the enormous purchasing power of rural industry on the one hand and the production of urban industry on the other. It is a significant fact that in the North-East area there was not before the war one large firm turning out agricultural implements, no factories producing tractors, milking machines or small stationary farm engines. There were practically no firms processing agricultural products, and we had not a solitary sugar beet factory. I suggest that along the lines of a closer marriage between town and country industry you have at least one approach to this problem. Especially in the light of the increased need for agricultural machinery after the war. I realise perfectly well, as I am sure my hon. Friends who are associated with me realise, that it is going to need every possible approach. But I see no reason at all why, with the courage, the technical skill and the tenacity of the people in these districts, we should not be able not only to preserve our heavy industries—that is what we want to do first of all—but at the same time advance along entirely new lines, so that we can say that no industry is too heavy for us and at the same time no industry is too light and seemingly unimportant to take a place in our economic life. In a word, we want to produce the goods and all the goods all the time.
I have said that I propose to deal by and large with one particular district. My hon. Friends and I are very well aware that we are not the only district which has suffered in the past and which is a potential sufferer in the future. What the Amendment asks is that we shall have a rather clearer view of the whole problem and that if possible my right hon. Friend should give a much wider picture, a much more definite statement as to these areas and the problem of the location of industry than we have had to date. It may be that the Government have an answer ready. It may be that it is on entirely new lines. I have said something about planning, and I should really be a coward if I ran away from that rather difficult word. I do not like it, because unfortunately it is suspect. It means to so many people regimentation, Gestapo-ism


and the negation of private enterprise. I am not using it in that sense. I realise perfectly that there is no solitary, simple, single answer to this problem and that it can only be solved not entirely by Government planning on the one hand nor entirely by private enterprise on the other, but really by a happy compromise and combination of the two. Millions of men and women have had their entire lives interrupted and disrupted by this war to save civilisation. Surely it is only fair that those people should have afterwards some of the fruits of that civilisation when it has been saved and should have the right at least to have the freedom to work when they want to.
Field Marshal Smuts has warned us that we are approaching a period in which this country is bound to be poor. That may well be, but it would be the rankest defeatism if we construed that remark as meaning that we were irrevocably facing a future of mass unemployment. Should that idea get into the heads of our people, should they think that because of lack of preparedness or lack of taking the initiative or fear or anything else the Government were not preparing against the evil day, should they think that we were irrevocably to return to the era of special areas, I say most definitely that there would be a catastrophic fall in the morale of the people of the country, the people in the Services and the workers in the factories, the mines and on the land. It is said that the public memory is short, but anyone even remotely connected with the special areas in those old days must have in his mind and in his heart an indelible picture of human misery and frustration which comes back to them like a nightmare. I think we are justified in asking therefore that those districts, because of their great industrial tradition and their more recent suffering, because of their great contribution to the war effort and because of the great potentialities they have for the future should at least now be given the right to hope, to great expectations, and above all the right to action now.

Commander Galbraith: I rise to support the Amendment as representing a constituency in an area which in the period between the two wars suffered as grievously as any other through being dependent on a few heavy industries. My hon. Friend who has just spoken is

particularly interested, naturally, in the future industrial prosperity of the North East Coast. He has told us that he and his friends in tabling this Amendment drew it so that it would include every area in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland which had suffered under a similar disability. I am naturally more interested in Clydeside and the West of Scotland generally.
There is considerable anxiety in that district to-day as to the future, and that is scarcely to be wondered at when we remember that during the slump in 1933 a fourth of the whole insured population of Scotland was unemployed. I have not the actual figures for the West of Scotland, but it may be taken that they were substantially worse than those for Scotland as a whole. The degree of misery which such a total of unemployment represents is very difficult to compute. It is not only those feelings of hopelessness on the part of the unemployed themselves. There is also the loss of dignity which comes from having to stand at Employment Exchanges and to apply for public assistance. There is fear in the mind of those who are still employed that at any time they may lose their job, and in addition there is a corrosive anxiety eating into the hearts of many others, particularly perhaps the small shopkeepr who sees a dwindling demand for his goods day by day and the prospect of closing down and bankruptcy staring him in the face. As the Seconder has said, those who have seen the cumulative effect of such unemployment not for brief periods but stretching over years have no wish to see it repeated.
The predominating cause of that misery on Clydeside was that we were dependent on shipbuilding and engineering and subsidiary industries, including the manufacture of steel. It is true also that we had a great coalmining industry in Lanarkshire, but unfortunately in that field the higher levels are rapidly being worked out. The fact is that whenever we find districts which are dependent on shipbuilding, engineering and coalmining we find excessive unemployment existing in times of depression whereas in districts where there is a greater diversity of industry unemployment is nothing like so severe. In that connection it may be germane to recall the situation that existed in regard to unemployment throughout


this country in November, 1933. In London and the South-East area of England it was 10 per cent. of the total insured population; that figure rose to 14 per cent. in the Midlands and the South-West, to 25 per cent. on the North-East coast and in Scotland, and 33 per cent. in Wales. It is my contention that had that total unemployment been spread more evenly over the country, it would not have presented anything like such a grave problem as it did, for once a district gets down to the level which was reached in the case of Wales, the North-East coast and Scotland it is very hard to remedy, for you are caught up in a vicious circle. The Government's problem, as I see it, is not only to find employment, but to see that employment is provided where it is required. To achieve that the better distribution of industry is absolutely essential.
In the Gracious Speech we are informed that the primary aim of the Government is to ensure during the transition period food, homes and employment. A few lines later on there appear these words:
In certain fields it is already possible to look beyond the transitional period and to frame proposals for social reforms designed to confer lasting benefits on My people.
I would suggest that by far the most important of these aims is the provision of employment, and I would qualify that by saying productive employment. If we are able to provide that surely much of our anxiety as to food disappears. We have to provide homes, and there is no difference of opinion in this House or throughout the country as to that. When it comes to social reforms, I sometimes wonder whether these are in the same order of urgency as the provision of work. I also wonder whether we are not expending too much of our limited energy, energy which is limited by the over-riding importance of winning the war which must be our main pre-occupation, on social reform to the exclusion of employment. As the hon. Member who seconded the Amendment said, you cannot build up, or if you do you cannot maintain, social services except on the firm foundation of productive employment, for only from such employment can you obtain the wherewithal to maintain these services. Employment is the first essential, but in order to be acceptable to the majority of our people it must be provided in the

localities where they live and if it is to rest on a secure basis, industry must be so distributed that no district is left to rely principally or entirely on any one industry.
There are those who hold the view that industry should be spread evenly all over the country. That may be a counsel of perfection. If we were planning from the beginning it might be possible, but to attempt to do it to-day, except very gradually, is impracticable. Further, it is beyond our means, for it would mean the abandonment and leaving derelict of many of our existing industrial areas. In those areas we have to remember that there are many of the amenities of communal life and we cannot afford to abandon them. We have also to remember that many of our people have their roots deep down in those areas and have no wish to be transplanted. We must, therefore, provide employment in these localities.
May I endeavour to put before the House one or two suggestions? My own district is devoted primarily to shipbuilding. I wonder whether it could be possible for shipowners in this country to forecast their requirements of new tonnage some years ahead. If they were able to do that it would enable the shipbuilders to plan a steady programme. That would prevent fluctuations both in employment and in the cost of tonnage and would be an advantage for every one concerned. I understand that negotiations with that end in view are in progress, and I am sure that every Member of the House will wish for them a happy outcome. If such an arrangement could be arrived at we should know, at least approximately the number of men in the district for whom steady employment could be provided and we should know what surplus remained over. That surely would simplify the question of the location of industry. New industries are attracted to areas where a surplus of suitable labour exists. I would ask, therefore, whether such forecasts could not be applied to other districts where a few industries predominate.
Following the war there will be a great variety of new industries. Science and the conditions arising out of the war have made that inevitable. Short of positive direction, which to my mind might stultify the object we have in view, are there no steps which the Government can take


to persuade industrialists to establish these new industries in areas where greater diversity is desirable? Industries are attracted by both natural and man-made advantages. There is nothing the Government can do to alter the former, but I suggest that they might influence the latter.
I would like to give one or two simple examples which come to my mind. There are inequalities in rating to-day notwithstanding the Derating Act. These disadvantages are particularly strong in certain areas, and especially in Scotland. I would ask whether the time has not come when these inequalities should be removed and when there should be instituted a universal system of rating for the United Kingdom as a whole. Another example which comes before me is the disinclination of certain local authorities to co-operate with industry. I can remember the case of the great steel works, in the vicinity of Glasgow where, in the coking of coal, they produced a great surplus of industrial gas. They offered that surplus to the local authority, but it was turned down. It it had been accepted, as it was in Newcastle and Middlesbrough, it might have provided a cheap form of power entirely suitable for light industries and thus have proved an attraction to them. In such circumstances cannot the Government take an interest and bring its influence to bear?
I am absolutely certain that a central authority, operating perhaps in conjunction with regional boards, is essential, an authority which would be responsible for the collection of information and be in a position to advise both from a national point of view and in their own interests those who intend setting up new industries. That authority should have powers of negative direction to prohibit the setting up of industries in overcrowded areas, such as Greater London, except under licence, and also, in conjunction with the Treasury, powers much greater than those given to the special commissioner of giving financial assistance where it was considered necessary and desirable in the national interest.
In that latter connection I feel that we in Scotland have a case for special consideration. In the original planning of our war production Scotland was altogether neglected. We have no shadow

factories, and that neglect has continued ever since. Now factories have been set up by the Government in England on a much greater scale proportionately than they have in Scotland. I was looking at the figures for 1941 and found that we received in Scotland less than one-half of the new industries to which we were entitled on a population basis and also on the Goschen proportion of 11–80ths. Not only so, but all our buildings which were available or have become available through concentration of industry have been relegated to storage purposes and not production. The result of that policy is that full employment is not available for our people and our younger people have been directed of necessity to work in England. That is a process which we do not desire to see continued for it will inevitably lead to the depopulation of our country.
That policy will also place Scotland at a disadvantage when the war comes to an end, for factories which are actually in production are capable of a much quicker turnover to peace purposes than are buildings used for storage. I would press on the Government the importance of their planning now to release these buildings for production at the earliest possible date.
It is on these grounds that I ask for special consideration of Scotland's postwar needs. We really feel that we have not been generously treated in the past. We ask for more generous treatment, financial and otherwise, and a better understanding of our situation in future. The trading estate at Hillington, I am led to believe, has been a success. It has been an inducement to new industries to come into the district, but much more than that is required. One direction which Government assistance might take would be financial aid for the provision of additional trading estates.
Glasgow and the Clyde deserve well of this country. It is an area ideally situated for the export trade with transport and other facilities of the highest order. It has unfortunately been represented as an unruly and undisciplined community, but it is in fact active, alert, independent and courageous and it has a highly skilled and most hard-working population. It has made a great and outstanding contribution to the war effort.
The West of Scotland is looking to the Government to use every means that foresight and knowledge can suggest towards providing a better balanced distribution of industry in the country as a whole and the prevention of unemployment and distress such as we experienced in pre-war days. Nothing that the right hon. Gentleman who is to reply can say would put more heart into the industrial population than an assurance from him on behalf of the Government that the omission of all mention of the location of industry from the Gracious Speech does not mean that the Government are content with things as they are; that they are indeed striving and will continue to strive to find a solution for that serious and difficult problem.

Mr. Daggar: I am, with other Members on this side of the House, indebted to the hon. Gentlemen whose names are put down to the Amendment for having afforded us an opportunity of discussing another important subject, because I am convinced that, unless some effective policy is formulated and suitable plans prepared now, this country will experience a difficulty after the war similar to the difficulty after the war of 1918, namely, a recurrence of unemployment and distressed areas. This nation cannot afford that. Everyone is naturally interested in the Beveridge plan, but I ought to lay some emphasis upon the fact that unless mass unemployment is prevented that plan cannot operate. With the demands now being made for improved social services and improvements in our educational system, it is impossible to make provision for the maintenance of so large an army of unemployed men and women as we had after 1918. We shall probably be faced with a National Debt in the region of £20,000,000,000.
I am not attracted by the optimistic statements of some individuals that we need be no worse off after this war than after the last war. That contention is based upon the fact that for the money borrowed in the last war we were paying 5 per cent. interest, whereas at present money can be borrowed at 2½ per cent. In my opinion those conditions may not continue to exist after this war, and, in addition, those individuals ignore the fact that 2½ per cent. upon twice the amount of our pre-war National Debt, which is

approximately £16,000,000,000 is just as great a financial burden as 5 per cent. on a National Debt of £8,000,000,000. I am well aware that all expenditure is limited only by our capacity to produce, but I am also aware that that limit has never been reached under the present economic system, and never will be while that system is permitted to continue, because of the prevailing policy of restrictions in order to maintain prices at which articles can be sold at a profit. To Socialists that constitutes a part of our indictment of the existing system, because it condemns people to idleness instead of permitting them to produce wealth which could be spent to improve the conditions of our people. It is said that the ultimate cost of the Education Bill will be something like £190,000,000, and we are also informed by reliable authorities that in order to meet that expenditure rates will, on the average, have to be increased by 16 per cent. The money required for that and other purposes cannot be produced by enforced idleness but only by production. What we want to stress is that the country will not be capable after this war of spending, as it did at the end of the last war and during the interwar period, the enormous sum of £1,459,000,000 in order to maintain in idleness people who, had they been permitted to produce wealth, would have increased the wealth of the country by no less than £8,000,000,000.
These are some of the considerations which have prompted me to express my approval of this Amendment. Another reason why I am interested in planning to prevent a recurrence of unemployment such as we experienced between the two wars in areas mainly dependent upon the heavy industries is because I live in a Division which before this war was specified as a Special Area, and like many of my colleagues I still have vivid and painful recollections of those days. The conditions under which our people were compelled to live, or exist, had to be experienced to be believed, because it was impossible to describe them in language. Sufficient is it to say that the people themselves living in those areas regarded themselves as the forgotten men of Great Britain. Here is what the Commissioner for the Special Areas, the late Mr. Gillett, said in one of his reports:
It may be that many of those who read these pages know as little about the areas


from a personal point of view as I did before I undertook this work. I well remember the depressing effect the great slag heaps and the ruins of dismal factories had upon me on my first visit, and even some measure of familiarity has not removed that feeling. It is no easy task to persuade industry to come to some of these places, and makes me ask myself the question whether it is right that whole districts should be ruined without industry being held liable for some of the ruin they have created. I am now asked to clear up these places on behalf of the Government, these unsightly, ruinous concerns that in former days, no doubt, paid shareholders handsome dividends.
Those days will inevitably return unless something is done now regarding the location of industry. War has achieved what peace failed to achieve, namely, to provide employment for those in the Special Areas. A writer in the current issue of the "Economist" states that the term "Special Areas" recalls a dismal and discreditable chapter in British history. With that I profoundly agree. He also states that "Food, work and homes" is a magnificent slogan for the post-war era, but the Special Areas have a claim to priority in its application, and from that I and my colleagues do not dissent.
Nothing has been done, apart from the war, to prevent the inevitable return of those inter-war conditions. As a result of repeated Debates in this House a Royal Commission was set up under the chairmanship of Sir Montagu Barlow, set up largely because of the suggestions made by one of the Commissioners for the Special Areas. The Commission held 29 public meetings at which oral evidence was received either from or on behalf of 50 bodies of persons, and written evidence was received from a further 72 bodies of persons. A Report, containing recommendations was issued, but it has suffered, to our discredit, the same fate as many others, in that it simply adorns the shelves of the Library in the House of Commons. That fact, with the absence of any reference to a national policy in the Gracious Speech, makes me feel very apprehensive and anxious about the future, not only for my own Division but for others. The outlook, in my opinion, is a gloomy one. The future, as far as my people are concerned, is both black and bleak. My anxiety is due to what has happened.
Again let me take my own Division, which was no exception but typical of every Special Area. From 1931 to 1938, a period of eight years, the number of persons placed by employment exchanges

in other districts was no less than 4,648. The number who left my Division and found employment for themselves was 7,065, making a total of 11,713 who were compelled to migrate to other parts of the country. If you take the whole of Wales and Monmouthshire you will find that between mid-1926 and mid-1938 the reduction in the population through migration was 378,700, which means that in 12 years one-seventh of the population of Wales and Monmouthshire left in order to find work elsewhere. In a more or less degree that was true also of every Special Area in the country. We then heard a lot about destroying the family and the break-up of homes, and it is too much to expect us to go through a similar experience again. Men and women who are waging this war must not be expected to relive that life. The Minister of Production in a speech to his constituents in Bristol said recently:
The location of industry must be planned by the State if distressed areas are to be avoided.
This question should not be left to the whims of private individuals nor to their petty financial and economic interests, or the position in the future will be even worse than in the past. I should imagine that everyone in the House will agree with the "Economist" that the war has certainly brought full employment to the heavy industries of the Special Areas, but it also emphasised their dependence upon those industries.
How true that is of the mining industry, particularly in Wales and Monmouthshire and Durham, and with its further mechanisation the post-war problem will be intensified. Not all in this House are familiar with what took place in those days in connection with this particular point. As regards the mining industry in Great Britain, if you compare 1920 with 1937 it is found that 21,000,000 more tons of coal were produced with a reduction in the number of men of over 434,000. Let me take another period, comparing 1937 with 1931. In 1937 21,000,000 tons more coal was produced with 76,126 less men. Some of us are unable to forget the result of the efforts made on behalf of the people who exist in the Special Areas and I would remind the House of what was done in the way of establishing new industries in those districts. From 1932 to 1938, a period of seven years, the number of factories opened in Great Britain was


3,617, 1,135 were extended and the number closed was 3,009. That left us with 1,743 new factories. In Wales and Monmouthshire, where the unemployment problem was so severe, we opened 60, extended 13 and closed 32, which left us with 41 small undertakings during that terrible period of unemployment. What was done for the Special Areas as distinct from the whole country, including Wales and Monmouthshire and Durham? During the same seven years there were opened in the Special Areas 173 factories and 78 were closed, which left a net increase of 95. In South Wales and Monmouthshire we had opened 26, none were extended and 10 closed. For seven years we had the small number of 16 factories. That is not much of an achievement in seven years—to have conceded 95 small undertakings to the Special Areas.
What is the present position? Where do we now stand with regard to the Government's proposals to deal with the Special Areas or to prevent their re-creation? Here for the moment I speak for the Labour Members for Wales, although probably our experience must be similar to that of other Members who have not forgotten the inter-war period. About 12 months ago we met the Ministry of Production and, after the usual discussion, we were invited to submit particulars of vacant buildings in our Divisions that might be suitable for small undertakings. Getting the buildings was necessary, we were told, because material and labour were not available for the erection of new buildings. I arranged with the three authorities in my constituency to submit the required particulars. We waited months for results, but nothing was done. We made inquiries, and then met the Ministry of Supply. After having carried out their instructions and waited for months we have now been informed that such questions are the business of the Board of Trade. Finally, we were told that no further dispersal of industry during the war was necessary and that before any action regarding post-war location of industry is undertaken it is proposed to have a number of surveys. To waste our time is bad enough, but to mistake movement for progress is worse in the light of what happened after the last war. These proposed surveys will cause trouble, annoyance and irritation among the people who have no future, nothing other than to live the past again. Let me read a portion of

a letter which appeared in "The Times" on the 4th of last month, signed, I take it, by Lord Ridley:
A positive Government policy of planning of industry whether by inducements or direction or both should begin now, and though perhaps such action cannot be taken in this phase of the war, it is not too soon for the Government to show that they are facing the difficulties and that they intend to solve them. Surely the planning of industry and occupation is the starting point of the planning surveys by local authorities. I do not know"—
and here I share the Noble Lord's ignorance—
the objects of the Board of Trade surveys to which your correspondent refers, or the ground which they are to cover, but I would point out that these areas have been constantly surveyed since 1933 from every point of view by every kind of organisation. Nor do I see in the method adopted for conducting these surveys much encouragement to trust the Central Government to understand the local problem, since, so far as I know, no advice has been sought from any local organisations and little is known locally of the activities of the Board of Trade investigators. The facts are welle enough known by those who live and work there; what is required is an effectively decentralised Government machine to carry out reconstruction, backed by some form of regional organisation as suggested by your correspondent. There is no lack in these areas of people willing to take the initiative and determined to see that those who live in what were known as the special areas, among whom are some of the finest workers in the country, have a future to look forward to. They cannot be expected to put up with a repetition of the past.
Most of us know the cause of the depressed areas without undertaking additional surveys. I put it in all seriousness to the right hon. Gentleman and with every possible sincerity. Pits were closed down because of the lack of effective de-hand for coal. They have not been reopened. They are still closed, and since the war the unemployed mineworkers and others whose livelihood depended upon the industry have found employment in factories which produce the armaments of war. When the war ends, the men will be as they were before, namely, unemployed. Let me give an illustration. I shall not be giving away any secrets. I had thousands of unemployed in my Division when the war commenced. Then, because of the establishment of a factory in an adjoining division, all my unemployed mineworkers found work in that establishment. When the war comes to an end, instead of there being 13,000 employed in that factory, probably only


2,000 will be required, and then I shall have unemployed miners coming back into my Division again.
Is it necessary to undertake further surveys in order to be convinced that that will be the position? Surely we do not want further delay by the undertaking of these surveys. It used to be a commonplace among Members of Parliament that when a commission was appointed it meant that the question with which it was expected to deal should be delayed of any solution; surveys imply further unnecessary delay. Why, there are already in existence no fewer than seven reports for the Commissioners for those Special Areas and also the Report of the Royal Commission, and printed surveys of almost every square yard of the depressed areas in Great Britain. In South Wales and in Monmouthshire we had two surveys, undertaken by the Welsh University, authorised and unasked by the Board of Trade. Their findings occupied three volumes. You can go into the Library and find that the volumes are now used to prop up other books. The reminder of those days is the cause of our present anxiety.
The Minister of Production, speaking at Oxford on the 28th of last month, is reported as saying that the Government plan upon the Beveridge plan would emerge, but—and I would draw the attention of hon. Members to this point—
in common fairness we must be able to see the outlines of the New Jerusalem before we start committing ourselves so far as to how it is to be furnished.
That is a dreamy observation. What fantastic heights of superficial oratory he attempts to scale. We want to see the Government plan for the New Jerusalem, and we can safely leave the furniture and its design to the right hon. Gentleman. He can have the pleasure of mixing his metaphors at his own leisure. We desire to know the plan which the Government have, to provide food, work, and houses, and to prevent a recurrence of what took place after the last war. To borrow the right hon. Gentleman's word "furnished," some of us still retain painful recollections of the name of one piece of furniture which had the effect of robbing the unemployed of this country of no less than £45,000,000 between November, 1921, and November, 1935. It robbed them at the rate of £15,000,000 a year, making a total in four years of not less

than £65,000,000. That piece of furniture is still in existence, namely, the infamous means test introduced by the Government of those days. During the same period, there were cuts in unemployment benefit, and increased contributions to the Unemployment Insurance Fund, which in four years denied to our people no less than £110,000,000. Again to borrow the metaphorical language of the Minister of Production, we want to know more about the New Jerusalem and its furniture. We, I repeat, are more anxious about what may be the position of the people in the recreated Special Areas, unless something is done. Like them, we dread the future. Give them, it is not too much to ask, an assurance to which they are entitled, namely, a measure of economic security. We ask the Government for their plans now in order to prevent our people from going through the hell of despondency, misery, starvation in some instances, and want which they experienced during the inter-war period.

Mr. Magnay: I am glad to catch your eye, Sir, on this occasion, because this question is in the very pith and marrow of my bones. When I came down here in 1931 I had in Gateshead alone 10,000 unemployed, on the dole. To see those men standing in queues at the employment exchange taking the form of an interrogation mark it seemed to me that it was saying to us legislators, "This is the riddle you must answer or die." Thousands of men of my breed—for I am a working man's son—as good as my father, and there was none better, dying of broken hearts, as I knew them, friends of mine, because they had to go and plead for employment, skilled craftsmen, or get away to the furthest ends of the earth. I too remember, as some of the older Members here will remember, that I did an unforgiveable thing in the eyes of the Whips. I got 91 Members of Parliament to back a round robin to the Minister of Labour of that day to the effect that if something was not done for the distressed areas we should vote against the Government. Among the 91 was a member of the Government benches. Then there began to be talk about these things.
I make allowances for those placed in authority over us at that time. We were shocked, not only surprised, at the condition of things. When unemployment insurance was enacted I went up and


down the land as one of those who had argued for this. The insurable risk then was 4 per cent.; that was the average. When it got to nearly 40 per cent. in the distressed areas I, to my everlasting regret, was Member for the second worst hit place in England and Wales. Merthyr Tydvil, I remember, was first, Gateshead second and Jarrow after that. I remember that I was elected as secretary of Members of Parliament representing distressed areas. I remember, too, many deputations we had from Liverpool and Glasgow. Backwards and forwards we went. We gave them no peace until they considered the matter, and while we were considering as Members to do what we could there was one man in 1933 who came unannounced, unknown to Tyneside, who never disclosed his identity but went to Jarrow and started there in a very small way, with insight and wise action, to put Jarrow on the map again.
When I contrast the condition of things now and then, I thank God that there was a man from Surrey who had the heart to come—none of us on Tyneside would do it, had the heart, brains or wit to do it—and from small beginnings put Jarrow on the map. I pleaded with him to come and do something for Gateshead. Sir Thomas Inskip told me, "We are going to close down the Close Works. Do not be alarmed, do not look like that. Your men will all get employment." I said, "Yes, but out of the neighbourhood. We have had more than enough of that kind of thing." I went to the hon. Member for Guildford (Sir J. Jarvis) whom I did not know personally. I asked him whether he had any good in his mind for Gateshead. He bought the Close Works. The consequence is that a man who had the vision, for "without vision the people perish," of what could be done, trained people in the factories, not in trainee places miles away from the place of employment, not at Wallsend or some other place, but in the factory where he established and initiated the work. He trained the men from better to best. The consequence is that he has employed 6,000 without a penny profit, without any dividends and also without even his expenses. He has gone backwards and forwards, and at an expenditure of £1,000,000, which is less than £200 per head, he has put 6,000 into

direct employment, which will be continued after the war—peace employment, with the best mill not only in Durham but in the world.
I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman to co-opt a man who has proved by experiment on Tyneside what can be done by insight, knowledge and by the good will he has created. In the 10 years there has not been one quarrel in the works. He has made these men, these employees, self-respecting. You can never respect anyone else until you have respect for yourself. No man can pull anyone higher than he stands. If I have no respect for myself, if I do not lift high my salvation erected brow, I can have no respect for anyone. You must not allow anybody to be brow-beaten. You must not allow your child to be brow-beaten. Teach them to stand on their own feet, with food in their stomachs, decent localities to live in and a park to play in.
The people to whom I refer have attained that respect for themselves which enables them to respect others, and they have not had a quarrel for 10 years. That is what has been done, not by talk, by speeches, or by conferences, but by a man whom nobody knew. It is time that we did something. We could be excused for what happened in 1931 and 1932. The rate of unemployment was four per cent. when the Unemployment Act was brought into being and we were surprised and shocked by what happened in those years. But we have no excuse now. What we have to do is to "put our brains into steep" as I have heard it described. Nobody else can do this home-work; we will have to sit down and get it done ourselves. We have to consider what ought to be done instead of talking defeatist stuff. All these difficulties that people are imagining can be taken in our stride and overcome, if we have the heart and the brains to do it. I have no need to tell the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade about Durham. He is Member for a Durham constituency and knows the hardships which the people of Durham suffered in those bitter dark years. He knows the loss of morale that was caused when men had not even a decent suit to wear, and were compelled to lounge about their homes almost afraid to go out to ask for a job. This is a testing time for us as a nation and to those who


argue that we ought not to be making plans at this time, I would say if you have an allotment, do you not make plans for the harvest of next year?

Mr. Rhys Davies: The hon. Member's story is very interesting to those of us who represent districts like the one to which he has referred. May I ask what those mills produce?

Mr. Magnay: Steel, metal tubes and all sorts of things, as the President of the Board of Trade knows well. The right hon. Gentleman as I have said does not require to be told about what is happening in Durham. God may forgive us if we do a stupid thing a second time but we can never forgive ourselves. I say—and I have never spoken more seriously in my life—that after all the fighting that has gone on for us, and to secure the better conditions which might be ours, we can never forgive ourselves if we do not have our plan, and if we do not see that our plan works and that we avoid what happened at the end of the last war. I wish the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade all good will and the best of luck in his endeavours to bring about a better state of affairs this time.

Mr. McLean Watson: I am glad of an opportunity of taking part in this Debate. Reference has already been made by an hon. Member from the West of Scotland to the position in that area. I wish to speak for another part of Scotland which is interested in the location of industry and much concerned about what is to happen after the war. After the last war we had a very bad time. I saw two industries in my own area which then seemed to be dying. One was coal mining. The hon. Member for Abertillery (Mr. Daggar) has told us what happened in Wales. The same thing happened in Lanarkshire and in Fifeshire. I saw nearly a score of collieries closed in my area. Naturally, we wonder what is going to happen after this war. During the last war we had the same prosperity that we are enjoying now, but when the war was over we had an army of unemployed men particularly in the mining industry. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman and those in authority are considering very seriously both the location of industry and the provision of employment for the millions who, to-day, are not engaged in productive employment. Millions are in

the Services and are otherwise engaged whose services will not be required in their present occupations—at least I hope not—when the war is over. To deal with them will be an enormous task and we are entitled to know what the Government are thinking of as regards the provision of employment for the great numbers who will require employment at the end of the war.
The other industry which I saw dying in my own area was the linen industry. I do not think anything has been said up to now in this Debate about textiles. What is to happen to that industry after the war? In my own town we produced the finest damask linen in this country, as good as anything that could be produced in Northern Ireland. That industry almost died between the two wars. Very little linen is now being produced in Dunfermline. Fortunately, owing to the enterprise—not of British but of foreign manufacturers—I am ashamed to say it—the silk industry was introduced into my constituency. Swiss manufacturers established factories or took over the closed linen factories and turned them into silk factories, and they are, at this moment, engaged in important war work. There is also the Border tweed industry. Will that industry be brought back to what it was before the war? Those two industries, the Dunfermline linen industry and the Border tweed industry, have suffered very heavily because they insisted on producing goods of quality rather than on producing goods in quantity. They may have a very hard struggle in the future to maintain that high standard which they set for themselves in bygone years.
There is another industry in the East of Scotland in which I take some interest, although I do not represent its area here and that is the jute manufacturing industry in Dundee. Here, again, we have a serious problem. I do not know what would have happened to Dundee if it had not been for war work during the last war. I do not think there would have been much to boast about as far as its main industry is concerned. Before the war it had serious competition with India and a very hard job to keep its place. I wonder whether that great city of Dundee has much prospect of prosperity in the years that will follow this war. I hope that the President of the Board of Trade will be able to reassure us, because the


vague phrases in the King's Speech are not good enough. There is no promise that things will be any better after this war than they were after the last war, and despite all that has been said about our experiences in the inter-war period, I do not know whether the Government yet realise what will be expected of them with regard to the location of industries.
I could mention other industries but I refrain from doing so because I promised to give the right hon. Gentleman time to make an adequate reply and I am more concerned to hear the case that he will put up for the Government than to talk further about the grievances of these areas. But I assure the right hon. Gentleman that not only the men in the Forces are concerned about what is to happen after the war. There are millions of others who to-day are doing work which will not be required after the war and they are just as much concerned about whether they are to be engaged in productive industry again, or whether; once more, they will have to join the queue at the Employment Exchange and to be paid the dole. Are we, once again, to pay out millions of pounds with nothing to show for it in the end, as was done between the two wars? I think there could be nothing more wasteful than to pay out money in the form of doles and to have nothing in return to show for it. There was a time when the Labour Government were accused of wasting the people's money because they sought to provide work for the unemployed. [HON. MEMBERS: "When?"] In 1929 and 1930. To-day, all over the country, there are roads that were constructed at that time and they are as good to-day as when they were made. They were made as schemes for the relief of unemployment. At any rate, we have something to show for the money spent in that way but we have nothing to show for the millions which were spent on the dole except the effect on the minds of those who passed through that terrible time.
I hope we are not going back to that again. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to reassure the House that there are schemes in preparation and that before we reach the end of the war, as munitions are no longer required so the factories now producing munitions will be

turned over to peace-time industry, and to the preparations that will be required for either permanent or temporary housing. I suppose that for the time we shall have to be content with temporary houses, until we can get the materials for the building of proper houses. I hope that the munition factories will be made full use of in this connection. I am glad to have had the opportunity of stating the conditions created in my area after the last war and to give a warning against the possibility of a return to them. I have never held out to my people the prospect of great prosperity after the war. I have reminded them of what we passed through last time and I have told them that they will be fortunate if they do not have a like experience again. I hope that the same thing will not occur again but the responsibility is the responsibility of the Government. If they want to have the House of Commons and the country behind them, they will show the people that they are in earnest, and go ahead with a policy that will satisfy the people and make things better after this war than they were after the last war.

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Dalton): I welcome the Amendment which has been moved. I welcome the speeches which have been made. I welcome the strong feeling which has been expressed, and which I share, as the representative of one of the most distressed constituencies in the pre-war distressed areas of this country, and I welcome, in addition, the opportunity of making a statement on behalf of the Government on this very important matter. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Mr. Magnay) for his very kind remarks at the conclusion of his speech. The hon. Member for Abertillery (Mr. Daggar) truly said that unless mass unemployment can be prevented the Beveridge plan cannot be implemented nor any similar plan for social amelioration in this country. That is perfectly true. It has been repeatedly stated, and I entirely accept it. The terms of the Amendment contain this phrase:
no mention of any national policy for the better location of industry.
I shall say something about the location of industry in relation to national policy in a moment, but our national policy has already been declared. The policy at which we aim is full employment in peace,


no less than in war, and after the war not only full employment, but full efficiency in the production of goods to the maximum extent of which our labour force is capable, both to meet the great needs which will exist after the war in the home civilian market for our people to re-equip themselves and furnish themselves with all they require, and also production for exports which it will be vitally necessary to increase as a means of paying for the food and raw materials we shall need to import. This national policy, as I have stated it and as the Government conceive it, is entirely inconsistent—and I wish to make this abundantly clear—with any repetition of the experiences between the two wars of those areas which we are discussing today. There is much in our history in the inter-war years from 1918 to 1939 of which we can all, according to our degrees of responsibility, feel ashamed. But I think there is nothing of which we should collectively feel more ashamed than of our neglect year after year of millions of the best of our men and women, who were living in those areas under conditions of deepening poverty, chronic unemployment and dull despair for the future. My constituents suffered these things, and so did the constituents of a great number of other hon. Members. Looking back we should be deeply ashamed of this, and we should pledge ourselves to do all in our power to prevent its recurrence. Successive Governments and Parliaments in the inter-war period seemed impotent to deal with this question. They seemed to show neither the will to deal with it, nor any intelligent planning such as was necessary to find a solution. I say with the utmost sincerity and conviction that there must be after this war no more such impotence, and that in these distressed areas, as we used to call them, there mast be, as in the rest of the country, food, work and homes for all our people.
I welcome and accept the statement made by the hon. and gallant Member for Pollok (Commander Galbraith), in the course of his very clear and forcible speech, that it is the duty of the Government not only to provide employment, but to provide it where it is required. We have shown very great national capacity to organise for war. This war has been very well conducted, much better than the last war. It would be a shameful irony if,

having shown such high capacity to wage war, we failed to show a corresponding capacity, when the war is won, and to carry forward our powers of organisation into the years of peace. We have done a wonderful job in mobilising the whole nation for the war effort. It has been done to an extent which before the war hardly anyone could have believed possible. It must be done no less in the years of peace.
I will now deal with one or two administrative matters which I hope will be of interest, and which arise out of the changeover. There is this connection between mobilisation for war and mobilisation for peace. We have built up this machine for mobilising the nation for war. When victory comes, that machine will still be with us. It will have been perfected for war. We must then put it into reverse, in order that we may turn back into peaceful production the man-power and the woman-power organised for war and the industrial capacity devoted to war. It is likely, it now seems, that there will be a two-stage ending to this war: it is likely, it now seems, that we shall get Germany down before we get Japan down. That, from this point of view, is advantageous, because it means that the change-over from war to peace will come in two phases, and will not be so abrupt as it was in 1918. When Germany is beaten a great war effort will be needed still against Japan. From this point of view that is an advantage, because it eases our problem. In this stage of the transition from world war to world peace there will be a considerable measure of demobilisation, not only from the Armed Forces but from war production, although much war production must inevitably continue in the second stage of the war against Japan. In this task of putting the machine into reverse the Ministers primarily concerned are working together as a team. We frequently meet and discuss this question together. I was discussing it only two days ago with my Noble Friend the newly-appointed Minister of Reconstruction, and I urged him to take a particular interest in this matter of the location of industry and the switch-over from war to peace. I did not need to urge him hard: he is taking a keen interest in the subject, and has already made a number of helpful suggestions.
I am also in touch with my right hon. Friends the Minister of Labour and the them has a special role in this matter.


Minister of Production, because each of They will be responsible for releasing labour and industrial capacity respectively, from the war effort when the moment comes. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour has been calling up labour on a great scale, and when the machine is reversed it will be for him to arrange for labour to be released from the war effort for peaceful purposes. Likewise, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Production will be releasing industrial capacity. Both my right hon. Friends, with their Departmental responsibilities, will examine with me the question of where these releases of labour and industrial capacity, as they become possible after the defeat of Germany, can best be made: in what trades and in what areas they should first be made, with the object, on the one hand, of avoiding heavy local unemployment in any area, and, on the other hand, of making the largest and speediest contribution we can to civilian needs and the rapid development of the export trade. My right hon. Friends the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Production and I—bringing in others for consultation when necessary, but primarily we three—will see that in the months following the defeat of Germany the difficult areas from an employment point of view are given a quick start, ahead of others, in any change-over from war to peace production.
So too, I, as President of the Board of Trade, having the responsibility for the Factory and Storage control, will take the same consideration into account in urging upon other Departments the need to clear requisitioned premises which I have furnished to them in difficult areas. I have been pressed very hard, and sometimes very inconveniently—though always in the interest of the war effort, and therefore I accept the inconvenience—by other Departments to find them premises for storage. In the clearance of such premises, I shall urge them to give special priority to the clearance of premises requisitioned in the difficult areas.

Mr. Burke: Such as the Lancashire cotton districts?

Mr. Dalton: That is one example. I do not want to enumerate the difficult areas: the principle is quite clear, and if we start to debate which areas are difficult and which are easy we shall be here a long

time. Nothing is being held up by the making of further surveys. I am satisfied that I and my right hon. Friends know well which are the difficult areas. But I take the responsibility for, and I organised, in conjunction with the Minister of Labour, a quick look round the pre-war distressed areas and certain others, to see how far the position had been altered by the erection of Government factories and any other new circumstances. But let my hon. Friend the Member for Abertillery not think that there is any hold-up on that account: not at all. I was speaking of the clearance of premises taken for storage. I shall press my right hon. Friends to give special priority and to take quick action in clearing, when clearance becomes necessary, premises which were requisitioned in the difficult areas, where otherwise unemployment would become a menace again.
I pass to another administrative matter. Taking the country as a whole, most of our building labour and material after the war will be required for housing. A great housing programme is an urgent and proper commitment for the Government to have undertaken. Taking the country as a whole, most building labour and material will be required for housing, rather than for industrial building. During the war we have built hardly any houses, and we had a bad housing problem, with shortages in many areas, before the war. Then we have had enemy action, which has destroyed many dwellings and damaged many others. I could not, as President of the Board of Trade, ask that I should have more than a certain reasonable fraction of the building labour and materials diverted from housing to industrial building of any kind, but there are certain areas—and these are the same areas of difficulty from the point of view of unemployment—where industrial building is not less important than new housing.
Therefore—and I have chosen my words deliberately here—as far as labour and material are available for industrial building, including the adaptation of Government factories to new uses and repairs and extensions to other factories, we shall aim at giving a high priority to industrial building, again in the difficult areas where there is a serious danger of unemployment. The mechanism for this is the building permit. No one can now undertake new building


without a permit. As far as new industrial building is concerned—I am not now speaking of house building—building permits are issued on the advice of the Board of Trade by the Ministry of Works. This will be a most powerful lever for influencing the location of industry in the transitional period. If I am still at that time President of the Board of Trade, I shall advise the issue of permits for industrial building so as to give a high priority to those places where industrial building is most necessary, or, in the words I have already quoted from the hon. and gallant Member's speech, not merely to provide employment, but to provide it where it is most required.
It is part of our policy, which will be, I hope, assisted by the various administrative measures I have been discussing, to create and maintain a greater diversity of industry than before the war in the difficult areas, which in the past have been too much dependent on one or two industries such as coal, cotton, shipbuilding and the like. It is never wise to have all the eggs in one basket, and there has been great unwisdom in our industrial lay-out in this country in that respect. How much better during these pre-war years have certain areas fared where there has been a great variety and diversification of industry and a more balanced employment! How much better have they fared than the areas of which hon. Members have been speaking in the Debate to-day! Although we have done nothing during the war, necessarily and by reason of the conditions of war, to deal with the housing problem, yet we have made during the war a very great addition indeed to the industrial equipment of the country, and it is mainly for war purposes. All these Government factories now under the Ministry of Supply and the Ministry of Aircraft Production—the factories, themselves, the machinery installed and the rest of the services that have been laid on, sometimes in rural areas—roads, special transport facilities, electricity and water supplies—represent a very great addition to the industrial capacity of the country. In so far as these factories have been established in some of these difficult areas, there are great post-war possibilities, as was indicated by one of my hon. Friends.

Mr. Furness: While I cannot expect that the right hon. Gentleman

did me the honour of reading my few remarks the other day, the whole point of them was that I pointed out, which I am surprised he does not know, that the doctrine of vulnerability has prevented new factories being put down.

Mr. R. J. Taylor: Would my right hon. Friend say where these factories are? In my particular area we have not a factory at all.

Viscountess Astor: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will give some lead with regard to the three Reports that have been mentioned, the Barlow, the Scott and the Uthwatt Reports before he sits down.

Mr. Dalton: I do not propose to name any factories in this Debate, for security reasons. We all know where they are. I could tell my hon. Friend who it was who succeeded in breaking down that security embargo on putting certain factories in the area about which he spoke. I know and he knows what exists there now. It is no use saying that certain things have not been done in various areas; I am discussing what can be done with what is actually there. There has been put down a very large number of plants, which could be of great use by adaptation to peace-time production after the war. My hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth (Mr. R. J. Taylor) says that there are no factories in his division, and I am afraid that many hon. Members can say the same. We know all that; I am discussing what exists now.

Mr. Burke: Is my right hon. Friend speaking about Government factories?

Mr. Dalton: I am speaking about factories put up since the war effort began. I beg hon. Members not to miss this point, but to take note of it. I am saying that, since the war effort developed, there has been established a large amount of industrial capacity in different parts of the country. I have already said that by certain measures we are going to give a special fillip to the use of this industrial capacity in the difficult areas. I have explained how factories can be used for that purpose, and I have also indicated that, as far as any new industrial building can be put up with the limited amount of labour and material that can be spared from house building, we will endeavour to deflect that to the places where it is most necessary from the employment


point of view. With regard to Government factories, some of them will be permanently required for arms production. We are never again, I hope, going to slip back to the state of affairs in which we produced too few arms. There were many Debates before the war about this, and I might be provoked into reminding hon. Gentlemen that it was when they had a majority in the House, that our arms production was insufficient, but I do not want to be led into controversy. I would say to everybody, whether they supported or whether they opposed the Government of that day, that never again must we be caught with too few arms in any future international situation. If you must choose between two miscalculations, it is better to have too many arms than too few. I myself have always obstinately maintained that view.

Sir G. Gibson: Sir G. Gibson rose—

Mr. Dalton: Will the hon. Member allow me to go on, because there are other things I want to tell the House which may be of interest? Some of the factories will be permanently required to produce the necessary arms for the country in accordance with the future international situation. At present these factories have not been and cannot be selected, but I am in touch with my right hon. Friends at the Supply Departments, the Ministry of Supply and the Ministry of Aircraft Production, and also the Minister of Production himself, and considering with them how we can, as soon as possible, get some decisions taken as to what factories are going to be so continued, so that we can begin to see the shape of future development in some of these areas. Any area will be lucky where a factory for arms production is kept on as a permanency, producing to its full capacity. Many factories could be used as complete units for some form of civilian production, and others could be adapted, as suggested by an hon. Member, as trading estates. I entirely share the view that trading estates must be increased in number and set up in various parts of the difficult areas. Some Government factories, by reason of their lay out, might be well adapted, with certain structural changes, for use as trading estates, as new centres of light industry and development of new processes and new materials in

which I hope we are going to take a definite lead after the war.
My controller of Factory and Storage Premises and his regional officers have already had conversations with a number of industrialists on their post-war plans. Obviously I cannot mention any names, but I would like to give the House a general picture of the talks which have been going on. My officers have already talked to a number of industrialists on their post-war planning, on the possibility, on the one hand, of these industrialists becoming applicants for Government factories not required for arms production and, more generally, on the possibility of these industrialists undertaking production in one or other of the difficult areas.

Mr. S. O. Davies: Why cannot the Government do the job?

Mr. Dalton: If my hon. Friend will allow me, I will tell him what is being done, and it will help Merthyr Tydfil, if he will only give me his attention. In answer to a Question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) on 2nd November, I said:
The Government have further decided that the Board of Trade, through its Factory and Storage Control, shall co-ordinate the disposal of all surplus Government factories. With a view to decisions being taken as to the best use to which these can be put in the national interest, the Control will compile lists of factories and of applicants for them. The Government recognise the importance of reaching such decisions before the end of the war in as many cases as possible, but much must depend on the course of events, including future programmes of war production. Special attention will be paid to the release of factories urgently needed for peace-time production and to the possibility of converting into trading estates some of the premises no longer required for Government work.
And I said, in reply to a supplementary question:
We shall certainly have particular regard to the employment aspect of the case in each particular locality."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd November, 1943; cols. 502 and 503, Vol. 393.]
I am glad to say that I have also had certain conversations myself with industrialists on this matter, and so has my hon. and gallant Friend the Parlimentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, and we propose to have some more. Broadly speaking, I am not discouraged by these conversations up to date. My purpose is to see how far we can create an interest


in new industrial development in these areas. I would like to tell the House, I must not mention names, as that would be quite improper, but I heard only yesterday from one of my officers of a conversation he had with a London industrialist who wanted to extend his works on the present site in London, in order to employ several thousand more workers. He said he would be willing, if he could get his production going more quickly, instead of making an extension in London, to set up in some other part of the country, provided suitable premises were available, or if they could be built more quickly there than in London. I am going to encourage these industrialists and try to meet their wishes in these matters. We have found a remarkable degree of willingness, especially on the part of big, firms, to consider suggestions by the Board of Trade as to the future location of their factories. I thought it right to tell the House that, in order to show that we are actively pursuing this, not only by way of general statements, but in detailed discussions with interested parties.
May I say a word or two on the general problem? When I came to the Board of Trade and began to study post-war problems with my advisers, I decided that we would ban the term "distressed areas" and wash it out from our vocabulary, and that instead we would speak of "development areas." That is what I and my officials now call them. A "distressed area" suggests an area, the distress of which the Government are prepared, if not passively to contemplate, at least only mildly to palliate. A "development area" means an area whose resources the Government are determined actively to develop and diversify. That is a change of emphasis which I thought it right to make. Those difficult areas are capable of development, in accordance with proper plans. I should like here to pay a tribute to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour for his constant help, and good counsel, and for the many stimulating suggestions that he has made to me on this question. He has suggested that we should call them "Defence areas," and I think that is a good title too, because they have been one of the foundations of our national defence and must continue to be so. Tyneside, Clydeside, the mining areas—coal is a munition of war and also a munition of peace—where the coal is won by the hard toil of sturdy men, and many other areas

essential to the life of the country, are entitled to be cherished, developed and safeguarded from the evils that have fallen upon them in past years. It is surely better that there should be health and hope again in Industrial Scotland, in the Industrial North of England and in South Wales than that the lifeblood of these areas should continue to be drained away in order to nourish a new ring of suburbs and suburban industries in Greater London and the Home Counties. I believe that practically the whole House agrees with that and that is one of the purposes that I shall hold before my eyes so long as I occupy my present office. On the resources of these areas we have leaned heavily in time of war; but for them we could not have carried the war effort as far as we have. From these areas have gone forth some of the bravest and best of our soldiers, sailors and airmen, and they will come back when this is over and expect to find something better than the inter-war years gave them. Therefore, I welcome the emotion and the interest which have been shown in the discussion of this subject, and I ask for the continued support and stimulus of all parties so that we may find a worthy solution to this problem.

Mr. S. O. Davies: May we take it that the Government in their consideration of post-war planning have accepted the principle of the location of industry, because in the absence of that principle being accepted I cannot see that the post-war period can be planned at all? Also are we to understand that the only hope the Government have of these great establishments which have been put up to meet our war requirements being used for peace purposes is in the industrialists who let us down so tragically during the two wars?

Mr. Dalton: I do not think I can do better than ask my hon. Friend to read carefully the report of my speech to-morrow. I have spoken at considerable length and have endeavoured to answer the questions that he has put.

Mr. Scott: My hon. Friend who is indisposed has authorised me to beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment. In doing so, I should like to thank the right hon. Gentleman for his statement. It will help very largely to soothe our anxieties and those of our constituents.

Main Question again proposed.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

ARMED FORCES (DEMOBILISATION)

Mr. Turton: I beg to move, at the end of the Question, to add:
But, while welcoming in particular the references to the training and employment of disabled persons and the reinstatement in their civil employment of persons discharged from the Armed Forces, humbly regret that the Gracious Speech does not announce the principles upon which the demobilisation of the Armed Forces at the conclusion of hostilities will be based.
I should like to go on where the Minister of Production in winding up the general Debate left off last week. He then used these moving words:
The poet said,
'It is a sweet and seemly thing to die for your country.'
But, believe me, if you have fought and survived there is nothing more bitter or more unseemly than that you should have to live in poverty and unemployment."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th November, 1943; col. 322, Vol. 395.]
The difficulty of the Armed Forces of the Crown to-day is that they do not yet know what will be the flavour of their future. That, it may be said, is due to the chances of shot and shell, bomb and torpedo, but it is also due to the discretion, taciturnity and evasiveness of Ministers responsible for this branch of policy in the Government. The Dominions have been far more explicit in their plans for demobilisation. Australia has passed the Australian Soldiers' Settlement and Repatriation Act, and in New Zealand they have passed the Services (Settlement and Land Sales) Act, and under that Act already there have been 1,500 applications dealt with and more than £750,000 given by way of assistance. Those are remarkble figures when you think what a small country is involved. But the House should realise that troops fighting together in the same Army with men of the Dominions should receive equal or similar assurance if you want to maintain their morale. Assurances for the future are an essential contribution to morale. The morale of our Fighting Forces has been outstanding. They have fought well knowing that those who have been reserved from fighting through their occupations have received a far higher reward for their services. They have fought side by side with our Allies and with the Dominions who received a better scale of rations, higher pay and more certain

assurances for their future. They will continue to fight just as they have done in the past, paying no heed to these differences except for giving occasionally a not unreasonable grouse.
I maintain that the time has now come when it is fair to these men that they should receive from this House and the Government a clear definition of their demobilisation policy. It may be said that the time is a dangerous one to give it and that it would give a feeling of overconfidence and the idea that the war with Germany is nearly over or imminent. I can assure the House that men in the Armed Forces are far less sanguine about that than the Press and people of this country. Those who fight the enemy, confident as they are of final victory, realise that before the war is over they must defeat the enemy army and that that will entail sanguinary battles. For that reason I hope that the Government will not ride off again on a suggestion that the time is not opportune or that there is any danger of over-confidence. In the King's Speech we have been promised two Measures dealing with the re-instatement in civil employment of persons discharged from the Armed Forces and with the training and employment of disabled persons. On the first let me say that I hope it will remove the anomaly whereunder at present volunteers are not covered by the compulsion to reinstate persons which applies to men conscripted under the National Service Act. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will give details of that Measure. The other Measure will be debated shortly, so that I will do no more than point out what I feel is present in the mind of every Member, namely, the greater debt that the community owe to the men who have been disabled while serving their country.
On the question of demobilisation the King's Speech is silent. There is not a word. There is no glimmer of a word. There is not even a coruscating phrase. That is a grave condemnation of the King's Speech. Let us go back and see what declarations have been made hitherto by the Government. The clearest of the obscure declarations that His Majesty's Ministers have made was that made by the Minister of Labour at Southport on 3rd September:
One principle the Government had accepted was that length of service was the


criterion of demobilisation, and they would not submit to what were called 'key men,' certain men and everybody pulling the wires one way or another. Industry would have to adapt itself if it could not get the men it wanted just as it has had to adapt itself during the crisis.
Later in September the Minister without Portfolio was asked about that statement and he said that the Government's statement on demobilisation was contained in the declaration of 22nd April and they had not shifted from it. May I read it to the House?
The broad principle is age and length of service, but there must be a latitude so that some men may come out before their normal turn, subject always to the proviso that exceptions must not be so numerous that the scheme breaks down."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd April, 1943; col. 1955, Vol. 388.]
That may be clear to a Chancery lawyer but as an indication to the men and women who impatiently await an indication of when they are to come out of the Services into industry, it is quite meaningless.
As far as I can see this problem, there are three objects for a demobilisation plan. There is a plan with the object of justice for the individual based on priority for length of service. There is a plan with the object of the interests of family life based on the priorities of age, marriage or children. Finally, there is a plan with the object of economic value to the community with priorities for industrial skill. The declaration made by the Minister without Portfolio appears to me to be an attempt to make a compromise of these three objects and to evade a decision that lies upon the Government which object they will choose and which priorities they are to give. I would like to consider some of these objects and priorities. Some have been included in the Government declaration and some have been included in various proposals that have been put forward by other persons and other bodies. Let me take the second group first. It is the first one in the declaration of the Minister without Portfolio. That is the interests of family life. It is clear that if we give priority to young children we are favouring those men and women who have by the fortune of war not been separated, to the disadvantage of those men and women who have been separated. In fact, we are penalising the men who have

borne the heat and burden of the war by fighting overseas. If the idea is the effect on the population problem I am far from convinced that the object will be achieved. The unmarried men in the Services are in that state not through choice but through lack of opportunity. When they get demobilised they will marry and will rear families. Indeed, it may well be that their productivity will be far higher than that of the older married men who have already established families.
Let me come to the question of age. I have failed to understand why the Government intend to give a priority to age. In the post-war world what we will require in civil life will be the young men and women who are eager and able to prepare for and cope with problems of the post-war world. If we demobilise men by age I am sure we shall create a feeling of unfairness in the Armed Forces of the Crown. One of the first things we will do will be to demobilise the men higher in rank, because if we examine most battalions in the field we will find that the older men are those higher in commissioned or non-commissioned ranks and the younger men are in the lower ranks. I cannot believe that that is what will recommend itself to them.
Let me pass from that to the question of economic value to the community. At first sight that method will satisfy all the planners' demands. What industry wants in the way of consumers' goods and houses will be provided by taking men out of the Services who are best fitted to supply those wants; but I think we ought to be a little careful. In the last war, after the Montague Committee's Report, the country adopted a scheme based on priority for industrial skill with the object of securing economic value to the community, and that scheme failed. Everybody who went through that period or has read about it will agree that the scheme failed, and the Government should beware of a repetition of that failure. In my view any such scheme would encourage wire pulling in the Army. It would be said that the man who had shouted the loudest, exaggerated the most and been lavish in the employment of influence in high places got demobilised first. I think there must be a plan that will appear just to the serving man, and I am far from being convinced that such a scheme would be of economic value to the community.
In the immediate post-war months the provision of employment will be an easy task, and if we bring out from the Services in that time men who by their service have lost some of the industrial skill they had when they joined, we shall be able to train or re-train them for the employment that is going to constitute their future. Later, when employment is difficult, those men, who will by then have had an even longer period of service, would have no chance of getting employment. If they are kept back until the boom period is over they are going to drift into unemployment just as they did after the last war. I am afraid that the schemes which the President of the Board of Trade spoke of to-day will be of no effect to such a man, because he would not have had the training for employment. If we keep back the man with industrial skill until the boom period is over he will be far better fitted to find employment when conditions are so difficult
I put that forward as a view, but the great criterion will be, Is it going to be just to the individual to have this kind of priority based on length of service and length of service alone? "First in, first out" will appeal with a sense of fairness to every serving man and serving woman in the Forces. If at that time there is a wide diversity of experience of overseas fighting, then it may be necessary for the Army, and for the Army alone, to give additional weight to overseas service, but, so far as we can see, when the second front begins the diversity in experience of overseas service will be levelled up and so no such adjustment will be necessary. Let me address this one word of warning to the Government. If they put forward to the House any scheme that is not just they will destroy the morale of the fighting forces far more than would any enemy propaganda or any defeat in battle.
The argument will be used, I think, that after the war with Germany is over large numbers of men will be required for service in the Far East and also for the occupation forces in Germany, and for that reason demobilisation will be only a trickle. Surely, there is an easy answer to that. There are a number of men who have hitherto been reserved because of their skill in munitions production and in essential war services. The Government should mobilise those men, who have been reserved hitherto, into the Armed

Forces and enable them to take their place in the occupation forces in enemy territory. I believe that scheme would appeal to the sense of fairness of the whole community. But if the Government are going to do that, they must declare it now. That is a great point. If they are to mobilise the men now reserved they cannot wait until that time comes, or they will get a great deal of dissatisfaction both in industry and in the Services. Such a step would aid the transition from war to peace and would, I think, give a great feeling of satisfaction to everybody, especially to the parents and the wives of those men who have been separated from them for such a long time.
There is one problem I want to touch upon if we are to have what the President of the Board of Trade describes as a two-stage ending of the war. I would point out that there are men who have been stationed in India and on Asiatic stations for many years. Some of those men, both in the Army and in the Navy, took part in the epic struggle of the Libyan campaign. There are men who were besieged in Tobruk for many months. We must not leave these men out there forgotten—reinforced, no doubt, but not relieved; and I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary in his reply will give the country and those men a reassurance that they will train those whose service at the end of the war will have been largely confined to the shores of England for the peculiar fighting that is required in the Far East and, as soon as possible, send them out and bring back the men who have been many years in the Far East.
To conclude: Over the whole of this matter the Government have made a fetish of discretion, but discretion without gratitude is meaningless. I have tried as far as I could to avoid exaggeration or sentiment, but anybody who has had the slightest experience on the battlefields of this war whether at home or overseas must have been struck by the wide diversity of comfort and rewards experienced by the men and women who have been sheltered at home and those who have fought and suffered to provide that shelter. I think the time has come when we must show those men who have fought and are fighting that the sacrifices they have made are remembered and will be rewarded.

Major C. S. Taylor: I beg to second the Amendment, which was so ably proposed by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton).
The House was particularly appreciative of what he had to say in view of his own gallant services in the field. As Parliament was responsible for the conscripting of young men and women into the Services, I think it is obviously the duty of Parliament to provide suitable machinery for demobilisation and resettlement in their peace-time occupations, when the time comes. At the end of the last war, demobilisation plans were well advanced, but none of them had reached any state of finality. Because of that, and because they had not been explained to the Fighting Forces and to the public, the Government were caught napping by the sudden collapse of Germany. The fighting men and the public took the view, which I believe is very widely held to-day, that everyone should be released from war service as soon as possible. The fiasco which followed was the result of a compromise between the public clamour for speed and the half-baked and incomplete plans of the Government for that enormous task.
I do not really remember it, but I am sure many hon. Members must remember the processions that went up and down Whitehall with banners giving advice to the Minister, "Get on with it or get out," referring to demobilisation. It is the desire of hon. Members who are putting forward the Amendment to impress upon the Government that no fiasco must be allowed to follow the collapse of our enemies this time. In the short time that is available now it will not be possible to go very far into details, but there are certain principles which I believe should govern the formulating of any plans which may or may not at the present time be under consideration
To begin with, there must be a Committee, which should consist of representatives from all the three Service Departments and from the Ministry of Labour, and it should be presided over by a highly competent chairman. That Committee should produce a number of demobilisation plans to meet every possible eventuality. A plan could be produced which could be put into operation directly Ger-

many collapses, if Germany collapses before Japan, as some people think, or vice versa, and another one should be produced if the collapse is simultaneous. The various planning departments of the War Office from time to time make a number of plans for future strategy. Many of the plans are not used, some remain stillborn, but they are ready and available if they are required, and they are worked out in the greatest detail. Why should we not do the same about demobilisation, that is, have a number of plans available so that they could be put into action to meet any eventuality?
I will digress for a moment, because, if such a Demobilisation Committee were in existence, the chairman would be a very important member of it, and I am sure there must be a chairman who is strong and sympathetic. He must not be swayed unduly by public opinion or by the Press, and, having had experience in the Armed Forces, he must not be under the thumb of any of the Service Departments. His one aim and object should be to produce plans which would create the minimum of heartburn and unhappiness in the Forces. God forbid that the job should be given to my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister without Portfolio, who has had so many of these post-war reconstruction problems thrust upon him. The other day I was reading a description of Napoleon, and I thought it was so apt that I modified it slightly, and I would like to apply it to my right hon. and learned Friend:
Grand, gloomy and peculiar, he sits upon the Front Bench, a hermit, wrapped in the solitude of his own originality.
The Minister without Portfolio may be the man to implement the proposals of Sir William Beveridge, but the Armed Forces will require a different sort of man to deal with the demobilisation schemes. It is no use the War Office producing a plan of their own. I believe that the War Office must come together with the other two Service Departments in close consultation so that plans can be co-ordinated as a whole. I rather suspect the War Office on this demobilisation question. I rather feel that the War Office when peace comes will be rather like the woman who has too much jewellery. She does not want to let it go although she has no use for it. They will not want to let the men go.

Mr. Bartle Bull: Let the men go, but keep the jewellery.

Major Taylor: If there is any jewellery left in existence. Neither the plans nor the principles which govern them have been made known to the public or to members of the Fighting Forces. I believe that those plans should be given full publicity and should be tied up and co-ordinated. The plan should be known to our Allies, the United States of America, especially as far as the scale on which demobilisation is envisaged if Germany collapses before Japan. I think the reasons should be explained why partial demobilisation is allowed to take place. The Prime Minister has already referred to the suggestion that there may be partial demobilisation. If it is because we shall not require so many men in the Army to fight the Japanese because of the difficulty of getting them over there, let us say so. Let us assure our American Allies that by demobilisation and diverting from the Army to industry, we shall be helping the combined war effort against Japan by increased production of ships, aeroplanes, munitions and so on, which will be vital in that fight. Unless these facts are broadcast widely, together with all the reasons which have influenced the Government's decision, we shall come in for very severe and unfortunate criticism from our Allies, the Empire and from our own countrymen.
Let us make sure that in these plans of demobilisation there is no wire-pulling. There must be suitable machinery to meet the cases of individual hardship among soldiers, sailors and airmen. Demobilisation for the Armed Forces must necessarily be gradual, and it is desirable, because every man who is discharged from the Armed Forces should have an opportunity of finding sustained employment on his return. There must not be wholesale demobilisation all at once, and I hope that the principle will be recognised that preference must be given to members of the Forces who have been engaged on active service in any theatre of war, and particularly to those who have been separated for long periods from their families. I remember early in 1936 mentioning Cadet Corps and conscription, and the horror and indignation which greeted those suggestions from Members of the party opposite. Fortunately we can talk about Cadet Corps and conscription to-day and

meet little or no criticism. I firmly believe that conscription for the Armed Forces has to go on and that we shall have to continue the principle of the Cadet Corps. I believe that those two points are relevant to the questions of demobilisation. The Allies will no doubt have to find a considerable force for the occupation of Europe and other countries of the world at the end of the war, and if we continue conscription, a considerable number of men who are called up for service with the colours will, after a short period of training, be available to be sent overseas to do this police work and military occupation.
I would like to support very strongly the suggestion that the Mover made about calling up men who have been engaged, for instance, on Civil Defence or on war production in the factories or stationed in the Armed Forces in this country. Let us call upon them for volunteers to assist in the policing and the occupying of Europe. They can carry a gun as well as a soldier in the Eighth Army, and I see no reason why those men should not be sent overseas for a period, to release some of the fellows that have fought bitterly on the battle grounds. I believe that those volunteers would come forward very readily. I appreciate that it is necessary to keep a large nucleus of seasoned veterans, but the volunteers would enable a number of chaps with long overseas service to get home. We put this suggestion forward, and I hope the Government will look into its merits. I favour a points scheme or some modification of it. I believe—and here I disagree to a certain extent with the mover of the Amendment—that certain key men will be necessary to the re-establishment of our export trade and that a certain number of building operatives will be necessary for the reconstruction of areas like Eastbourne, Hastings and the other defence and evacuation areas. It has been said, I believe by the War Office, that there is not sufficient information available to put the points scheme, or a modification of it, into operation. That is a very weak argument. I believe that the existing regimental institutions and welfare services can get quite sufficient information about the individual soldier to put the points scheme into operation.
Finally I believe demobilisation should be tied up with the conditions of those who are to go on serving in the Forces.


We must make arrangements for those people who wish to continue serving in the Forces and who want to make it their career, that their career will be equal in pay and conditions to that of their brothers who have come home and been demobilised and go into industry. I believe that is a most important point. Let me end on a note of warning. Be perfectly certain that the men and women who are now in the Services will expect a demobilisation scheme, ready cut and dried when the great day comes. The troops are all talking about it now. Woe betide any Government or House of Commons that has not got that scheme ready, or neglects these obligations. I hope that we are going to have an assurance from the Parliamentary Secretary, but I am afraid that he has not given very much hope to me in private. When he comes to make his public statement I hope it will be something really worth hearing.

Viscount Suirdale: It is impossible for anyone who has served for a long time in this war not to have strong feelings about the subject of this Amendment. I consider it a great privilege to be allowed to make my maiden speech on this subject. I sincerely hope that the House will appreciate that I have these feelings and will balance them against any errors into which I may fall because of inexperience of the customs of this House. It is a great privilege to be able to follow the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton), but he has occasioned me a considerable amount of embarrassment, because I came her with a speech all beautifully mapped out of what I was going to say. He has given rise to an argument. I agree with about 90 per cent. of what he said, but on the question of priorities I am afraid that I do not agree at all.
I agree with him entirely when he says that this subject is exercising the minds of the troops very much, and I venture to say that it is also exercising the minds of almost everybody in this country more than almost any other subject. I do not say that without some reason. I have only recently been returned to this House as the result of a by-election. It was very striking that wherever I went, whether it was in the depths of the country, into county villages or county towns, or into the highly industrialised area around Peterborough, people were all

asking the same type of question. They were questions like this: "What is going to happen to our boys when they come home?" "What is going to happen to my husband when he comes home?" "Are our boys going to get jobs, or are they going to be let down and given the same sort of rotten deal that they got last time?" I considered that questioning highly significant, because I think it is an indication of what the people of this country are really thinking. This is a very difficult problem particularly because there are so many uncertain factors, but there are two things which are absolutely certain. They are that as soon as the war ends a very high percentage of people in the Services will want to get out right away. They will also all have very good reason why they should be the first to be let out. If that matter is left to general discussion as to what the priority should be, I do not think we should ever get agreement.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton that the Government must take the lead in this matter and must come out and say what is going to happen and give people an opportunity of studying it. The House must have an opportunity of discussing the plan and modifying it in the light of the views of hon. Members, if necessary. We must get people educated up to the idea of what is going to happen. If the Government produce their plan at the very last moment out of a pigeon hole, devised perhaps with the greatest skill by the best brains in the country, I think that would be the best way to create distrust and discontent. They have to come out with that plan, if not now, then as soon as they reasonably can, and if that plan is fair, reasonably flexible and above all easy to understand, they may have a certain amount of support for it and there may be a large amount of unanimity. As far as priorities are concerned, His Majesty's Government have been in considerable doubt. They have advocated "first in, first out," age, and length of service. If the hon. Member had read further the particular passage containing the quotation he made from the right hon. Gentleman the Minister without Portfolio, he would also have noticed that the Minister promised to consider the claims of those who served overseas. He also admitted that His Majesty's Government have not made up


their minds. I am not going to criticise the Minister for that, because this is a very complex subject. There are so many and varied claims.
I am inclined to agree with the hon. and gallant Member for Eastbourne (Major C. S. Taylor) about the points scheme. My hon. Friend who moved the Amendment rejected compromise, but the hon. and gallant Member for Eastbourne and myself are in favour of compromise. I think it is not beyond the brains of the people of this country to work out a weighted points scheme that would work. I would favour such claims as marriage, length of service overseas and from those who have served in particularly dangerous jobs, owing to the tremendous strain upon them. I am thinking of people in air crews and submarines, who may find it more difficult to re-adapt themselves to post-war conditions. The hon. Member said that we have a choice between three issues, length of service, family life, and key men. I do not agree with that really, and I would like to suggest that if the points scheme were worked out along the lines which I have indicated, the effect might be that the brunt of it would come upon the unmarried men who had served exclusively in this country or abroad for very short periods. It would be hard luck on them, but somebody is going to be the Cinderella in this business. In fact, it may appeal to the hon. and gallant Member that it would encourage people to get married and might help the birth rate. The hon. Member may say, "How can a man afford to get married on Army pay?" I agree with that, and I hope I shall not be out of Order if I say, "Put up the marriage allowances."
I would like to make a further point about priorities. Whatever scheme may be devised by His Majesty's Government, some people are going to be at the top of the list and others at the bottom. Whatever happens, the people at the bottom are going to be very frightened indeed, terrified lest they will be left out in the cold, that they are going to be the Cinderellas of this post-war period. I think if I were one of them I should be very frightened too. I do think that it is up to His Majesty's Government to produce legislation and assurances first of all to convince them they are not going to be left out after this war. They will have

to undergo considerable sacrifice, and I think they are entitled to the most specific promises. I think secondly that the Government should produce legislation to make certain they do not get left out and do get a fair deal when the war ends. I think that the first of these two things is going to be the more difficult task.
My last point is on an entirely different matter which was touched upon by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade at the end of the previous Debate. The question of demobilisation is a part of a much wider picture, part of the general change-over of the economy of this country from war to peace. Industrial workers in this country have been earning, many of them, in the last year or two far more money than they have ever had before. They have had to pay Income Tax, but I think it is fair to say that more money has been coming into many more homes than ever did before. Yet owing to the shortage of consumer goods they have not had anything to spend it upon, and owing to the National Savings Campaign a great deal has gone into national savings of one type or another. The result has been that there has come into existence quite a wide class of industrial worker capitalists, people who may have one, two, three or even four hundred pounds put away. That is going to be very useful to them in the reconstruction period and also very helpful if they want to go into small one-man businesses such as shops.
That is a very good thing, but here I think the men of the Services coming home will be at a disadvantage. They will not have any capital behind them. I defy anyone to save large quantities of money from the amounts paid to them. Let us consider what they are going to get. They will get their post-war credit. If my calculations are right, that amounts to £9 2s. 6d. per year of service. In addition to that they will get their war gratuity. We do not know what it is to be. At the end of the last war the maximum that a private soldier could get was in the region of £30. That is not much. I suggest that in order to offset this obvious inequality and in order to give courage to men in the Services about their future, His Majesty's Government could well consider stepping up that gratuity very substantially indeed. That might give not only confidence but some


cash with which they could start readjusting themselves in the new world.
In conclusion, may I impress upon my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour and National Service that His Majesty's Government have a moral responsibility to these men, many of whom have undergone considerable hardship without complaint, without proper pay and sometimes with less food than those outside the Services. I think it is up to the Government to see that they get a fair deal when they come back home and that they receive every encouragement and help to try and adjust themselves to the difficult conditions of peace.

Mr. John Dugdale: It is my pleasant duty to congratulate the hon. and gallant Member on a most admirable speech, a speech which showed the confidence of one who quite evidently knew what he was talking about. In fact, so confident was he that I had to ask the hon. Member sitting in front of me, Was he previously a Member of this House? I really thought he had been a Member before and had lost his seat and had now returned, and I am sure we shall have the pleasure of hearing from him on many occasions.
I intend to be very brief indeed, as I know there are other Members who wish to speak. I think the speech of the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) showed the need there is for a discussion of this subject before concrete plans can be framed, and in fact, I find myself in the somewhat irregular position of being in general support of the Secretary of State for War, which is not a position I very often occupy. I do so because I think his scheme of age plus length of service seems to me with one or two modifications which I propose to suggest to combine simplicity with justice. That is what is wanted. The only two suggestions I have to make are—and they have been made before by many other people—first of all that marriage should be included. I disagree here most strongly with the Mover of the Amendment. I feel that a man who has been married, who has a home to go back to, has a right to demobilisation before the man who has yet to make his home. After all, those of us who have young children know what it must be like for men to go out and serve abroad, maybe for many years, and never to see those

children growing up. I think they should come back before the men who by luck or circumstances do not happen to have married.
I come to the second point. I feel most strongly that more account should be taken of where a man was serving. I think age plus length of service alone is not enough. I understand it is possible through a wonderful organism which I had the honour of seeing when I visited the War Office with other hon. Members for many complicated matters to be worked out which could not be worked out by any person, certainly not by the Secretary of State for War or any other Member here. I understand it is possible to weight certain considerations and I would suggest that we might weight length of service abroad as two years against one year's length of service at home. In other words I mean that if a man has served abroad for one year it should count the same as a man who has served at home for two years. I hope it will be possible for something along those lines to be introduced. It is all very well to say that every man suffers hardship by going into the Forces. If I might take my own constituency as an example I know it is a great hardship for a man in West Bromwich to go to Cornwall or, with due respect to my Scottish friends to the North of Scotland, but he does at least have an opportunity of getting back maybe every three months in theory or even every six months in practice whereas a man who is abroad has no such opportunity. I am not thinking only of the men serving in the front line but the men now in Persia, West Africa, the Faroe Islands and all sorts of strange places. I think these men have a right to be demobilised before those men who have been luckly enough to be stationed at home.
Those are the only two points I want to make. I hope that marriage and length of service abroad will be brought into the scheme, and with that qualification I hope the Government will go ahead with their scheme of age plus length of service and bring it in at the earliest possible moment so that our troops may know where they are.

Lady Apsley: It is with a sense of great humility that I take part in this Debate, for I know so many


hon. Members wish to speak, and those of us who have the privilege granted by you, Sir, do so with the responsibility of speaking what is in the mind of 6,000,000 or 7,000,000 of His Majesty's subjects in uniform who are to-day, by reason of the exigencies of service, denied themselves to say what they feel at the present time. I support most sincerely what the hon. and gallant Members who have already spoken have said with regard to demobilisation, and I think that I only differ in this way, that I have somewhat more confidence in the capacity of the Government to deal with what will undoubtedly be the difficult post-war period. For this reason: We are all of us so close to the happenings after the last war that I am quite sure the common sense of all parties will unite in preventing it happening this time. Secondly, I also appreciate that there are so many prominent members of His Majesty's Government who are themselves ex-Service men and will not have forgotten the difficulties of their comrades in arms.
So I would pass on quickly to what I believe to be points of view which have not already been mentioned on the part of men and women in the Services. The first is with regard to demobilisation, and here I agree with what the hon. and gallant Member for Peterborough (Viscount Suirdale) said with regard to the necessity for some type of Advisory Council consisting of high officers and representatives of various Service Departments concerned to settle priorities. I believe that the Chairman should be ex-Service. I welcome very much what has been said with regard to the points scheme. Having been one of the members of the original Committee, I think it would interest the House to know that the points scheme was first suggested by General Sir John Brown, who was Inspector-General of the Territorial Army before the war and is now a distinguished member of the National Executive Committee of the British Legion. The great thing about this points scheme is that it is fair, it is simple, and it is understandable. I think it definitely would prevent the troubles of 1919 which have already been referred to, with regard to the demobilisation first of all of key men. I do feel that to-day that, under the conditions of modern technique and modern instruction, in the majority of industries it is fairly easy to make skilled men and women.
Next—if I may digress into a little detail, which I believe to be of utmost importance with regard to the employment of the ex-Service community after the war—it is that the present discharge documents of the m women from the Services do not clearly show the standard of skill and responsibility which has been a tained in the Services. I would suggest to Service Ministers concerned that they should look into that point and see that the discharge documents are engrossed by some competent officer with the type of skill which the individual has attained in terms understandable by prospective civilian employers. For example, an Auxiliary in the A.T.S. sent on a R.E.M.E. course passed out with 97 per cent. marks and it will not be shown on her discharge document that she is a superlative light engineer. Only three men have attained over 90 per cent., 70 per cent. being the average pass. It is obvious that demobilisation cannot be accomplished for everybody even on the fairest type of points scheme and certainly not on some absurd arbitrary slogan. For instance, there is bound to be a shortage of shipping, certainly in the case of men in the Far East, and "length of service" would remove all the best experienced men—officers and N.C.Os. In those cases I suggest that the Service personnel concerned receive some type of compensation if they cannot be demobilised in their due turn, something in the way of deferred War Savings credit. This I believe would keep up the magnificent morale of our Fighting Forces at the present time.
Secondly, I would say in support of what hon. and gallant Members who have already spoken have said that there were disastrous repercussions after the last war over the sort of inferiority complex between the men who had fought and the men who did not risk their lives, which was well put by Shakespeare:
And gentlemen of England now abed will think themselves accurs'd they were not there,
And hold their manhood cheap when any speak who fought with us upon St. Crispin's Day.
This is very strongly brought up to date in Lord Elton's book, "St. George or the Dragon," especially in the chapter on "The Assault to Morale."
If I may add a few words with regard to special problems of the million women in the Forces, for whom we have a very


great responsibility, as in addition to the magnificent service given by the men in the field they too have won the war for us. Three questions are exercising their minds at the present time. Firstly the possibility of their return home as quickly as possible when the war is over, particularly those who have husbands or children or aged dependants. This I believe concerns some 65 per cent. of women in the Forces. Secondly, I think that some 35 per cent., consisting of some of the finest women in the Services, have a directly opposite interest, which is that they are so happy in the W.R.N.S., the A.T.S. and the W.A.A.F.S. that they would like to make service with the armed forces a profession and would like to know whether this is to be made possible for them after the war, with acceptable pay and pension rights.
The third question refers to a small but important section of the Service women. It is that they would like to know whether when they come out of the Forces they will be able to carry on the skill which they have learned while in the Services. Will the trade unions accept them? Will they be able to get equal pay for equal work? Will they be able to have seniority in the teaching profession for their years of service? Will there be possibilities for emigration for them within the Empire? These I submit are some of the questions agitating the minds of both men and women in the Forces to-day. I appeal that they be given due consideration, because not only do we owe them much but in the Services they train to give, not to get, and we in the post-war period shall have great need of such noble and efficient givers.

Mr. Bartle Bull: I should like to join with my hon. Friend opposite in the tribute he paid to the Noble Lord on his maiden speech, which I think we all listened to with great pleasure. My hon. Friend did not mention this particular point. Provided that the Noble Lord has nothing to do with the old school tie, whatever that may mean—and I have never really understood what it does mean—I think there is a chance in life for the Noble Lord. With regard to this Amendment, I would like to say I entirely agree with the terms of it, and I very much enjoyed the speech of the hon. Member who moved it. As I say, I thoroughly agree with the terms of it. But I do think this is an extremely bad

time for us in Britain to be talking about demobilisation in any form whatever. In the United States, at the moment, they are calling up more and more men, and if we spend a day, or even a half-day, in this House discussing demobilisation we should remember that the Americans do not look at it that way as far as they are concerned. Therefore, I do not think we are doing good by discussing demobilisation at the present time and in calling attention to this subject. But since we are discussing it, I think any announcement by the Government on demobilisation—and I am not aware that there has been one so far—should coincide with an assurance by the Government that all young men who have not yet seen any service, will have an opportunity of taking the places of those who have seen service.
I put this proposal forward for several reasons. One is that some of these young men will not feel very happy about it in the future, when the war is over, if they have not had a chance to do any soldiering. Therefore, I say give a change to the younger men to press themselves forward. There are plenty of skilled workmen here at home and it is difficult to release them in order that they may go into the Army, even though they may be young and fit. My hon. Friends opposite know, however, that there are many skilled workmen—with families—men between 35 and 40, still in the Army. They are just as skilled as the men at home. Why should they not be brought back to take the places of younger men who, apparently, are vitally necessary for the continuation of the war effort? When I was learning with my platoon how to dig, we had a miner in that platoon, and I admired the way in which he dug his trench and squared it neatly with so little effort, while I was perspiring heavily with my share of the work. I asked him, "How do you do it?" and he said, "If you will insist on getting the pick, away round by your heels"—he put it in another way—and then he finished by saying, "If you just lift the pick up to your shoulder, the Lord will bring it down," As soon as I learned that principle, I began to find that I could dig as well as any man of my years. There are many such men in the Army, miners and all sorts of men, and there are no better soldiers in the world than British miners and no better disciplined troops.
I mention that only to show that there are many well skilled men in the Army who should be released in order to give a chance to some younger men, who, I know, would like to get into the Army. As I say, this is the wrong time to discuss demobilisation. I do not regard the war as having yet been won. At least, the last time I saw the German troops they did not look to me as if they were beaten, though they may be different lately. But I think, instead of discussing demobilisation, it would be better to assure the troops about what will happen to them when they are demobilised and to give them an incentive, by having the pay of all junior officers, N.C.O.s and men immediately increased and better allowances given to wives and dependants. I regard it as vitally important that there should be an acknowledgment fairly soon on the part of this House that the dependants of those who are disabled by the war and the dependants of those who are killed, shall be a first charge on the nation.
As I see it the duty of a Member of Parliament or of any public man is not merely to do what he is told by the popular voice of his constituents. It is a little more than that. If your constituents elect you, surely they trust you just a little bit, and it is up to you to give a lead from time to time. Could we not be honest about this question? Does not everyone of us know that there cannot be any immediate wholesale demobilisation on the conclusion of hostilities. Let us own up to it. Do we not all know that? I certainly do and in my opinion what the soldier would like to know is that when he comes home, he will not be any worse treated than the people who have remained in this country. I agree with the suggestion that the oldest men, the married men—the most married men if you like—should be released first and I think everyone who has done long service, particularly overseas service, should have preferential treatment and should be guaranteed a job if he is able and willing and fit to take it.

Mr. Lewis Jones: As I understand the Minister is anxious to reply soon, I shall not go into all the matters with which I had intended to deal and thus the best speech which I have ever prepared will be taken away in my pocket. I wish to refer briefly, however, to the question of the reinstatement of

Service men, in which, as one who is associated with industry, I am particularly interested. The House is aware that in the 1939 National Service Act there is a Section which makes it obligatory on employers to reinstate men from the Armed Forces in their employment on the termination of the war, under conditions not less favourable than those which would have applied to those men had they remained in civilian employment. In the 1941 National Service Act that Section was amended. As a result of new powers obtained by the Minister, he was enabled to direct into Civil Defence Services, certain personnel, in certain age groups, and the Act was amended to make it obligatory on employers to reinstate even those people who had gone into Civil Defence Services. But there was a remarkable omission. The man who had volunteered for the Armed Services had no right, by law, to expect reinstatement. I know from personal experience that there are many employers who had a decided desire to reinstate the volunteer at the earliest possible moment, in fact a prejudice in favour of the volunteer, but the fact that this statutory obligation has been placed on employers to reinstate compulsorily enlisted or directed workers, takes away from the employer the voluntary right to reinstate the volunteer.
I am delighted that the Minister, through the King's Speech, has under-taken to introduce this Session another amending Bill to deal with this subject and to ensure that volunteers in the Armed Forces are at any rate to receive the same statutory right to reinstatement in their employment as others. There are one or two other matters in connection with this Measure which I hope the Minister will bear in mind. One is the laying down of conditions which will define more clearly what is meant by the 1939 and 1941 Acts as to the practical possibility of the reinstatement of certain people because there is going to be serious difficulty. I know of industrial undertakings where, normally, the personnel employed would be 500 or 600, but since the outbreak of the war I discover on the pay books of these firms 1,200 or 1,300 people. Perhaps six people have been employed where there was only one before and when those people come back from the war, obviously there will only be one job among six people and only one of the six can get it. I hope that when the Minister


drafts his Bill, he will introduce a principle which is quite common in industry, by agreement between employers and trade unions, that the seniority rule shall apply when the question of reinstatement arises. I do not wish to intervene further between the House and the Minister.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. McCorquodale): I hope the House will not think it impertinent of me if I suggest that we have had in this short Debate some excellent and thoughtful speeches. It has been specially notable for two maiden speeches. The first one was on the previous Amendment, by the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Lionel Berry) which I, unfortunately, missed and now we have had one from the Noble Lord the Member for Peterborough (Lord Suirdale). I am sure the House will agree with me when I say how much we appreciated that speech and how cordially we congratulate the Noble Lord on it. I can promise him that his remarks will be studied with great interest by those responsible for these matters, and we hope to hear him often contributing to our debates.
The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) who introduced this subject in a very well-reasoned and well-thought out speech mentioned our Disablement Bill and Reinstatement Bill. The Disablement Bill will be introduced this week and we hope that the Reinstatement Bill will be introduced when we come back after the Recess. It would be improper for me to disclose beforehand what the Reinstatement Bill will contain, but I have every reason to hope that it will satisfy the aspirations of the hon. Member and will also cover the matters referred to by the hon. Member for West Swansea (Mr. Lewis Jones) who so kindly gave way to me. I was also pleased that the Noble Lady the Member for Central Bristol (Lady Apsley) took part in this Debate not only because of the matter which she addressed to the House, important as that was, but also because she reminded us that demobilisation is not an exclusively male problem, and that there are hundreds of thousands of girls in the Services to whom demobilisation plans will equally apply.
The Debate therefore has been well worth while and seemed to follow most naturally on the informative speech of the

President of the Board of Trade on the previous Amendment. Nevertheless, I am sure no hon. Member will expect me to unfold in detail the Government's demobilisation plans. The subject is, of course, of absorbing interest—and I use the word "absorbing" deliberately and would emphasise it—not only to us but to the troops in the field who are now engaged upon or who are training and are shortly to be engaged upon tremendous military encounters. We must always bear this fact in mind when choosing the right moment for full disclosure of and debates on our plans for demobilisation. Nevertheless, I think I should give an assurance that our plans are very far advanced. It is true that some important final decisions remain to be taken, but we are well prepared to deal with the adjustments that may be necessary, for example in the event of a sudden, unexpected collapse of Germany. There is no question of our being caught unprepared but let there be no misapprehension. We are all determined to prosecute the war with Japan with all our might.
The Amendment regrets that
the Gracious Speech does not announce the principles on which demobilisation of the Armed Forces at the conclusion of hostilities will be based.
The authors of these words possibly overlook the essential difficulty which we have to face, in that the war may end in Europe while continuing in other parts of the world for a considerable time. The Prime Minister has made it clear that if this happens we shall throw against Japan all the resources we have available. It will be readily appreciated that in such a case a number of important and complex considerations arise which would not arise if all hostilities finished at the same time, as they did after the last war. The Government have had to re-examine their plans for demobilisation in order to take full account of this possibility. The study of our plans for a two-stage demobilisation has been proceeding for some time, but is not yet concluded. I welcome the speeches which have been made to-day, and the House may be sure that the points which have been made by hon. Members will receive the closest attention of the Government. The Amendment refers to demobilisation. As the hon. Member who moved the Amendment reminded the House, there have


been statements made to the House on the subject, notably on 22nd April by the Minister without Portfolio, who has done so much work in connection with this matter, and on 6th July by the Secretary of State for War.
It might be worth while for me briefly to recapitulate and comment on the principles which appear to me to be vital for the success of any plan of demobilisation in whatever circumstances hostilities may end. In the first place, it is obvious that demobilisation depends on military considerations, which must override all other claims. We have to keep a skilled and well-balanced Army. Secondly, the scheme must be accepted as fair. Such success as we have had at the Ministry of Labour in the mobilisation of our country for war purposes has been due very largely to the fact that we have emphasised on every occasion that we must act fairly. Indeed, the public have shown hundreds of times that they will endure and support the hardest policies if they are convinced that everybody is treated fairly. The same principle must be paramount in demobilisation if we are to avoid the troubles of 1919 and much industrial upheaval later on, for there is no doubt that much of the industrial unrest of the early 'twenties had its origin in the discontent and the bitterness which was engendered by the injustices of demobilisation last time. We cannot afford such injustices after this war. One of the most essential needs of our reconstruction will be peace in industry. Therefore, I suggest that, subject to the overriding military requirements—for there are bound to be men who cannot be spared when their turn would otherwise come, because of their specialist or military qualifications—the scheme must be fair, and must be accepted as fair by the men in the Forces, and, most particularly, by their wives and families. It would be possible, no doubt, to work out a highly scientific scheme of demobilisation, designed solely to meet industrial needs, but we could do that only by ignoring these principles of fair treatment as between man and man. The feelings of men who have served long terms in the Forces cannot be ignored—and His Majesty's Government do not propose to ignore them.
As a third principle, the scheme must be as simple as possible. That sounds like a platitude, and possibly it is, but it is often forgotten. It is a principle we should bear closely in mind when considering the so-called points scheme which has been advocated in some quarters in this House to-day, and elsewhere. If we could ignore all administrative problems we might be able to draw up a scheme on paper which would take account of a wide variety of considerations such as hon. Members have suggested to-day, and by putting them against each other determine which individuals should be demobilised first. Whether this would be fair to individuals is a nice question: at any rate, it would lead to endless arguments as to what weight should be given to this consideration and to that. There is no doubt that the work of endeavouring to operate such a scheme—and this is of fundamental importance—will fall upon the officer commanding in a unit, who will have to group his men in the order in which they should be demobilised. Therefore, our scheme should not be one which may lead to the commanding officer having to refer back questions because he cannot settle them on the spot. In such a case the commanding officer's position would be intolerable, and the scheme would not work in practice. Many hon. Members may have had experience, as I have been privileged to have for a short time in this war, of the duties of an adjutant. They will appreciate the need for simplicity in a demobilisation scheme. In the Army the man's Army Book No. 64 is his vital document. It is on the information in that book that the commanding officer has to work.
I would sum up the position by saying that the two practical requirements are, first, that the Service authorities, having been given an order by the Cabinet to demobolise so many thousands of men, should be able to translate that order into instructions to units which will result in that number of men, and no more and no fewer, being released; and, secondly, that when the instructions are received by the units there should be no difficulty in carrying them out. Those criteria, I suggest, should be applied to any consideration of a points scheme. Another fundamental and simple principle, obvious I think to everybody, is that the scheme must not promise more than can


be performed. We cannot put ourselves into the position of promising the soldier, sailor or airman something and then not carrying out our promise. This is in effect a corollary to what I have been saying about the simplicity of administration. Just as we cannot ignore the position of the officer in the field, we cannot ignore other difficult factors which impose limits on what we can do. There are many things we would like to do if we had unlimited shipping at our disposal, or if we were prepared to take risks which could not be justified on military grounds, but we have to be realistic, and to shun undertakings which we shall not be able to carry out.
Apart from the order of demobilisation, to which most Members have addressed themselves, there is the question of the rate of release. The principle here is that the rate must be governed solely by operational requirements and not by the availability of civilian employment, as has been suggested in some quarters outside. At first sight, one may be attracted by the idea of attempting to regulate the rate of discharge from the Armed Forces according to the state of the labour market, but here again one must never lose sight of the natural feelings of the individuals concerned, nor of the repercussions on morale in the Forces if men and women were retained when there was no longer any need for them in the Forces. We have really no right whatever to keep in the Forces anyone for whom there is no military requirement. But if we accept this as the correct principle—and I think we must—then the responsibility for the speedy and satisfactory resettle-of demobilised Service men lies, fair and square, on our shoulders. The Government fully recognise and accept this, I would assure the hon. Member for Peterborough. We are firmly resolved so far as it is in our power to do so, to see that ex-Service men and women shall not find themselves faced, as one of the first consequences of the return to civilian life, with the need for applying for unemployment benefit or assistance. We want the first visit of the men to the employment exchange to be to get a job and not to draw a dole.
I have endeavoured to outline, very briefly, the necessary basic principles as they appear to me, of a satisfactory demobilisation scheme.

Mr. Holdsworth: While I agree with what my hon. Friend has just said, will it not be essential that allowance must be made for key workers in order that employers may be able to give the work that he has just suggested?

Mr. McCorquodale: I do not want to be drawn into details. There is a scheme, as my hon. Friend knows, for the withdrawal of key men from the Forces where the need is shown to be essential, and even while we are engaged in the war many people have come out in such individual cases. There is no reason why that should not come up for consideration. I do not want to go into details of that sort now. The Government have already announced, as the hon. Member reminded us, that age, plus length of service, should be the framework within which their plans are being worked out. I submit that age and length of service are factors which the public will recognise as fair and proper considerations to be taken into account in working out demobilisation schemes. We cannot let all the young men out and leave all the old men in, as was rather suggested by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton. We have to consider the needs of the Army, which will require some young men, and, would it be fair to keep all the fathers in the Forces while allowing all their sons out?

Mr. Turton: Surely, first in, first out would enable a lot of old people to come out.

Mr. McCorquodale: By and large, the younger men went into the Army first, and I suggest that the Government plan of age and length of service is the best framework. At any rate, there could be no charge of injustice or log-rolling about a principle of that sort. Furthermore, these are factors which can easily be calculated and checked by the Commanding Officers in the field. And finally, they are simple and modest, and do not promise more than can be carried out in practice. The detailed application of these principles, in the light of possible developments, in the war situation, has been the subject of close study, and the plans are well advanced.

Major C. S. Taylor: Who is in charge of them?

Mr. McCorquodale: The Government as a whole; they are now before the War Cabinet.

Major Taylor: The War Cabinet Committee.

Mr. McCorquodale: My hon. and gallant Friend can call it the War Cabinet Committee. I would repeat that in due course and when the time is considered opportune—and I would emphasise that—the Government will make an announcement of their full plans, and I have no doubt that if the House so desires it, opportunity will be given for full discussion and debate. I am told that I ought to bring my remarks to an end so that the whole Debate on the humble Address can be properly concluded.

Mr. Turton: With that object in view, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Main question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,
That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, as followeth:
Most Gracious Sovereign,
We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom

of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.

To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of His Majesty's Household.

SUPPLY

Resolved,
That this House will, upon the next Sitting Day, resolve itself into a Committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to His Majesty."—[Mr. Whiteley.]

WAYS AND MEANS

Resolved,
That this House will, upon the next Sitting Day, resolve itself into a Committee to consider of the Ways and Means for raising the Supply to be granted to His Majesty."—[Mr. Whiteley.]

ADJOURNMENT

Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Captain McEwen.]